The Mirror Revised and Expanded Edition

Translated from Tibetan, introduced and edited by Adriano Clemente

THE MIRROR - Advice on Presence and Awareness (Dran pa dang shes bzhin gyi gdams pa me long ma) was written during a retreat of the Dzogchen Community held at Lu Cumitoni, Sardinia, Italy, during the Christmas holidays of 1977. It is a short text—intended as advice, as the title indicates—that with profound simplicity explains the three fundamental aspects of Dzogchen: the view (tawa), or the comprehension of one’s own primordial state; the meditation (gompa), or the cultivation of this knowledge; and the conduct (chöpa), or the integration of meditation in all daily activities. The Mirror was expressly written to elucidate the principle of awareness and continuous presence in place of all the rules and limitations inherent to the various religious traditions. The commentary following the translation from Tibetan is taken from an oral teaching that the Master gave during the same retreat on December 29, 1977, when presenting the text to his students.

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu often said: “Dzogchen doesn’t ask you to change your religion, philosophy, or ideology, nor to become something other than what you are. It asks you only to observe yourself and to discover the cage you have built with all your conditioning and limits. And it teaches you how to get out of the cage without creating another one, in order to become a free, autonomous person.”

In this new edition, the original translation has been completely revised, correcting some errors in interpretation and attempting to render it more faithful to the original Tibetan. The oral commentary, previously abbreviated and summarized in various passages, is here presented anew in its original, more colloquial form.