Instantly Liberating Appearances

a Dzogchen teaching

“Instantly liberating appearances” and “self-liberating appearances” are phrases that my Dzogchen teacher, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, often used. They have slightly different, but related meanings that are useful for practitioners who want a taste of the View.

Instantly liberating appearances in a relative way

I’ve come to understand “instantly liberating appearances” in two ways: relative and absolute. 

The experience of duality is continually being produced. Duality is our ordinary experience of being in a world with lots of different beings and things separated by space. 

This experience, from our perspective, is full of limitations.

For instance, a limitation that the majority of people suffer from is feeling upset and defensive when we are unfairly criticized. 

We want to explain ourselves and prove the other person wrong. Perhaps we are angry and may even want to hurt our accuser in return. Or we feel shame and self-doubt.

This is not liberating appearances! We are just being a normal person reinforcing our dualistic experience.

I am separate person. You are a separate person. You have done something to me, and I am harmed. This is one of the infinite storylines of dualistic experience. 

A relative way of instantly liberating appearances means that we immediately, without rumination, feel and discern the condition of the other person. We recognize the pattern of emotions that causes them to demonize or vilify others.

Compassion spontaneously arises. We are not wondering: “How can I show compassion?” We are not suppressing feelings of anger. We can act with skill and clarity.

The “instant” part is that the gates of our perception are relatively open. We can see how people and circumstances are in their unique dimensions. We actually experience more open-heartedness.

In this relative sense, instantly liberating appearances does not mean that we are able to fix everything, comfort everyone, or that we have to be around everyone no matter how they are behaving. It also does not mean that we are free from our own limited emotional patterns.

But we will have more clarity and the capacity to make wiser choices, even the choice to leave or end a relationship or take some aggressive action. And we will still feel compassion and kindness toward everyone and ourselves. 

Instantly liberating appearances in an absolute way

If we are instantly liberating appearances in an absolute way, it means that our perceptions are even more open and clear. Now we can directly perceive that everyone and everything is continuous and full of wisdom. We can listen to and feel the wisdom of circumstances and improvise on the spot along with that wisdom. 

This is not an intellectual exercise or something we decide or plan out. It happens naturally and more or less continuously depending on our changing condition.

There is a sense of playfulness and of following and devotion. There is a sense of everything that arises being part of a surprising adventure, even when circumstances are difficult.

Again, this cannot be “grokked” intellectually. But when we are able to instantly liberate appearances in this way, there are profound changes to our perceptions, to our relationship to circumstances, our own limitations, and those of others.

Self-liberating appearances

“Self-liberating appearances” is a beautiful and rich formulation. It means that appearances, what we perceive normally from moment to moment, contain within themselves the power to reveal the real nature of things.

The essence of appearances is the power to reveal wisdom. So while we do practice and receive transmission to assist us to open the gates of our perceptions, reality itself is eagerly revealing itself and welcoming our recognition.

We really get into the nitty-gritty of non-dual View and life here.

Normally we like to separate appearances from how things actually are, or dreams from waking life, or ignorance from self-realization, or samsara from nirvana.

But the self-liberating power of appearances shows us, when we are ready, that all phenomena have total equality. To enjoy this revelation is one of the best definitions of self-realization.

As another one of my teachers wrote in a doha—a teaching song:

When I realize appearances are my texts
I forget all about those big books with their letters in black
It’s OK to forget the Dharma that’s just a heavy load - Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche¹

We discover that all wisdom is “written” into the totality of life and our moment-to-moment lived experience should we be so fortunate as to liberate those appearances and be liberated by them.

with infinite love,

Shambhavi

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1. Equality and Seven Things to Forget - a doha by Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche