The unaltered state

Many people in the West pursue meditation in order to experience altered states.

Meditation is sometimes considered a safer alternative to taking psychoactive drugs, with roughly similar effects. The jhanas are altered states of consciousness, for example. Buddhist tantra also produces diverse altered states, using various methods.

In Western Buddhism, the usual idea is that enlightenment itself is a special kind of experience. It’s an altered state of consciousness, also in the way that psychedelic drugs can produce altered states.

This is roughly consistent with some traditional Buddhist ideas about enlightenment, although not others. For example, in some tantric systems, the endpoint of the path, enlightenment itself, is said to be the simultaneous union of clarity, bliss, and emptiness. Those are often explained more-or-less as altered states of consciousness. Then tantra is a collection of methods that produce altered states, including ultimately that union. (There are other explanations of tantra that are more metaphysical; less psychological.)

I don’t want to denigrate altered states, in any way. I think they can be fascinating, enjoyable, meaningful, and useful. However, the branch of Buddhism I care most about, dzogchen, denies that enlightenment is an altered state.

In fact: Exactly the opposite!

Enlightenment is the unaltered state.

The dzogchen word for enlightenment is “rigpa,” which is defined as the natural state. You might say it is the state in which you are not altering your mind.

Nearly all the time, we are in an altered state, which is called samsara. Samsara is the state in which you are constantly poking at your mind in order to get it to behave better—instead of leaving it as it is, in its natural condition.

So you might suppose that rigpa is the special state in which you don’t do that. But this is actually wrong. Samsara is also nirvana. It too is enlightenment. It is also rigpa.

The thing is, rigpa is always present. It’s not something you produce. Rigpa is not something you produce, because it’s always already there. It’s something you notice. Or don’t notice.

Dzogchen is not like tantra. It has no methods for getting to enlightenment. From dzogchen’s point of view, tantra’s attempts to produce enlightenment are impossible and absurd. It’s like trying to get to Paris from Notre-Dame Cathedral. You’re already there! You are right at the center of it! Just look, and you’ll see Paris all around you! Everything you can see is more Paris!