The Single Purpose of the Dharma: Discover the True Nature

When looking at the spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, it seems that there are so many contrived elements, so much that seems to surround these ancient teachings. This can seem attractive to some, and it can feel like an obstacle to others.
So let us cut through all that – What is the main point of the Buddha’s teaching, of the Dharma? The actual intention is simply to discover who we really are – to discover the true authentic nature of our being. To discover that is the same as discovering the nature of all beings and of reality itself. There is nothing of greater importance. This is the single purpose. Specifically when considered from the point of view of the Great Perfection (dzogchen atiyoga), the natural path, it becomes possible to cut through all the elements that seem to complicate the path.

The complete path to happiness is discovering the condition of that which we call ‘I’. ‘I’ is the source of identity, ideas, desires, hopes and fears, anger, greed and of all confusion. Why? Because it is the ‘I’ that seems to experience birth, suffering, life, and death. The path to discover the nature of this ‘I’ is summarized simply as that which is naturally present without being a thing. Without being a thing, all that is not a thing appears in vast limpid openness. The vast limpid openness and the non-thing are not different or separate. All of this is present without effort or deliberate creation, it is simple and spontaneous. This is the Buddha’s Silence because it cannot be spoken. From the Buddha’s silence all beings arise, the entire universe arises; all arises from the Buddha’s luminous silence but it never moves away from it. So in that way all the beings and the universe are the Buddha’s speech, just as music is inseparable from silence; it is the movement of silence itself.

All the Buddhas of the three times without exception give teachings in vast amounts. These are equal to the limits of space and unfathomable in extent. Yet they are all for the one purpose of realizing one’s own mind. The Buddhas do not give teaching for any purpose other than that. – Shabkar

To resolve the matter of impermanence resolves the matter of suffering and happiness, and of birth and death. To resolve the matter of impermanence is to resolve everything.

To abandon self-clinging and grasping is to abandon the root of delusion. In the same way to abandon hope and fear is to abandon self-clinging. In this the natural condition is unstoppable and unborn.

Fixating on thoughts is fixating on things; however when we inquire deeply we realize that things are non-things, so if we fixate neither on things nor on non-things, we do not fixate on anything, but remain open, lucid and clear. This is the sun that clears the mist of the cloudy mind and the sun shines forth illuminating the natural condition. Until this is fully resolved and realized, we cannot forget karma; that is, the principle of causality in which is reflected the relation between actions and their results, which simply means that ethics and principles of morality are not something fabricated by the human mind but the results of causal dependency. In fact, to go even deeper, ethics is that which is in accordance with the true nature of reality.

As I wish to repeat, Buddhism being a religion has no abstract interest in logic, or psychology, or metaphysics per se, (…) the chief problem is to reach a state of self-realization which is the sine qua non of Buddhahood, and of Bodhisattvahood as well. – Suzuki.

by Aja.