Each section of the book leads into the next, showing how, by peeling away our habitual assumptions and projections, we can directly encounter the intrinsic purity of our own mind. "This is it",
Dzogchen
, the great completion.
The first facet,
One Thing Leads to Another
, offers
sutra
texts on
dependent origination
. The second,
Increased Transparency
, includes the Heart Sutra and indicates that all phenomena, whether seemingly outer or inner, subject or object, are empty and devoid of inherent existence. This leads onto the third facet
Encountering the Other
, the story of how the Buddha
Chakrasamvara
manifested in order to deal with cruelty and malicious behaviour. The fourth Facet,
Getting Lost Invites Trouble
, offers two accounts of how pride and self-confidence can lead a person astray so that their provocations lead to a display the Buddhas' wrathful power, enforcing transformation and the abrupt end to the careers of heartless bullies.
Next, in the fifth facet, we see how transformation can be elective rather than imposed.
Cutting Free
begins with the story of
Machig Labdron
, her struggle to free herself from social constraints so that she could pursue a life in dharma. There is a short guru yoga practice and her
Chöd
practice, The Dakinis' Laughter. Finally in facet six,
Just This
is
The Cuckoo Cry
, the foundational text of the dzogchen mind series. In just three couplets it sets out the view, meditation and activity which are the inseparability of primordial purity and instant presence.