Everyday Practice of Dzogchen

Everyday Dzogchen made clear. Learn how authentic Dzogchen practice offers modern practitioners a path that is both profound and practical.

Many who come to practice today discover the same tension: teachings that feel too shallow to take us deeper, or too rigid to feel alive.

If you’ve been meditating for years, maybe tried apps, read books, or done a couple retreats, you may feel like you’ve only skimmed the surface. The practice is meaningful, but it hasn’t yet given you the clarity or transformation you’re looking for. The path can feel fragmented: too shallow in some places, too rigid in others. You want a clear path that you can trust, something authentic, but also possible to live within the responsibilities of work, family, and everyday life.

Or maybe you’ve built a successful life outwardly but feel restless inside. Burnout, disconnection, or a sense that your days don’t align with what matters most. You don’t want more productivity hacks or self-help fluff. You want to live a life of purpose, dignity, and a way of living that feels whole.

Our generation of seekers is searching for a middle way: a Dharma that is both authentic and livable. This is why Dzogchen matters today.

At its heart, Dzogchen is about recognizing that this very moment is the ground of awakening and learning how to carry that wisdom into your life. It’s not a path of accomplishment, for the result you are looking for is already present as your very nature. It does not depend on circumstances. It is the basic dignity of presence itself—open, clear, and receptive.

In The Natural Openness and Freedom of the State of Equality, Longchenpa writes:

Awareness, present of itself, is perfect.
Beyond acceptance and rejection,
Its display as it arises is immensely vast,
Free and open from the very first.
And in its openness and freedom,
Mind is but the natural flow of the primordial state.
When your realization of it,
Like the king of mountains, is unshakable,
You will enjoy the vast expanse
Of the great sphere, dharmakaya,
All-pervading, present of itself.

To recognize it is to recognize our natural state, our true nature that is not constructed by effort but present from the very beginning.

Kama and Terma: Two Streams of Dzogchen

Most people encounter Dzogchen today through the terma tradition, treasure teachings revealed by great masters like Jigme Lingpa or Dudjom Rinpoche. These teachings often combine the Dzogchen view with tantric methods of deity practice. They are profound and they continue to nourish countless practitioners.

But there is another stream: the Kama tradition. This is the spoken-word transmission passed continuously from Garab Dorje, Shri Singha, Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, Vairocana, and others. The Dzogchen Kama lineage relies directly on the Dzogchen tantras of the mind class (semde), space class (longde), and pith instruction class (menngagde). After the preliminaries, it moves straight into trekchö and tögal, the heart practices of direct recognition and leap over, without the elaborate frameworks of deity yoga practice.

The Dzogchen Kama lineage is rarely presented openly, yet it carries some of the earliest and most direct instructions of the tradition. Today, I am starting a series that opens that doorway, not to set it against the terma traditions, but to let the clarity of this path shine. It is a direct path, one that speaks powerfully to our time.

Lineage Connection

My own path in Dzogchen has been guided by Younge Khachab Rinpoche, with whom I have studied since 2004. Rinpoche teaches the Dzogchen Kama as it was transmitted to him by his own root guru, the Dzogchen yogi Dingri Khenchen. His approach emphasizes the essence of practice found in the works of Longchenpa, the Vima Nyingtik, and the early Dzogchen tantras.

It is this unelaborate style of Dzogchen, rooted in the oral lineage, steeped in Longchenpa’s profound view, and focused on direct recognition, that I have studied and practiced under Rinpoche’s close guidance. This series arises from that training: not my invention, but a continuation of this living stream of instruction.

The Atlas and the Journal

The lineage masters have already given us the atlas: Longchenpa’s Seven Treasures, the Vima Nyingtik, the early Dzogchen tantras. These are complete maps of the path. But an atlas can be overwhelming if you are standing at the trailhead.

What we need alongside it is a travel journal. Notes from the trail, written in the midst of everyday life. That is what this series aims to offer. We will lean on the atlas of the lineage, but our focus will be practical: how to live these teachings, offering reflections and practice points you can use today.

two person holding map and clear compass — Photo by Daniil Silantev / Unsplash

A Liberating Path

The Kama tradition presents Dzogchen in three broad phases:

Preparation: training the mind, practicing the preliminaries, and working with the channels, winds, and bindus so that we become a proper vessel for the teachings.
Main practice: the essence of luminosity, consisting of the practices of trekchö and tögal.
Constant practice: integrating awareness into every state–day and night, waking and dreaming, living and dying.

These are not rigid stages to check off, but doors we return to again and again. They will form the backbone of this series.

An Invitation

For the seeker who feels stuck between shallow options and inaccessible traditions, our aspiration is to offer clarity. For those searching for meaning, it offers dignity and purpose. For all of us, it offers a way of conscious living.

Few places offer Dzogchen in a way that is both faithful to the lineage and accessible to modern life. That is the space A Life’s Work holds: clear, relational, and practice-first.

The masters gave us the map. This series is about how to walk it—here, today, in the middle of ordinary life.

Practice Takeaway
Relax your body, breath, and mind and simply rest in the open presence of awareness itself. Just this.

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