Simply Being

Simply being is the state of the primordial buddha Samantabhadra / Kuntu Zangpo, the unchanging innate purity, the heart of everything.

Simply being is the ground, path and fruition of all existence. The teaching of this is known as dzogchen or the natural perfection of all experience.

This is not an abstract idea but is the vital presence which we embody and engage with as the world around us. Dzogchen teaching recalls us to the open nature of all things, the natural state we have never left, yet have somehow forgotten.

Meditation reveals the deconstruction of the disintegration (ignorance) which manifests as the separation of subject and object. As disintegration disintegrates, the given-ness of integration shines forth and the accumulations of tension, anxiety and assumptions which bind, knot and restrict us are released without effort.

The teachings of dzogchen have been present in our world for many thousands of years. They have been passed on in unbroken lineages which have survived in Tibet and have now spread out into the world following the Chinese invasion.

The purpose of this website is to offer the key points of dzogchen illustrated with many examples from everyday life. These presentations are mainly in the form of lightly edited transcripts of teachings given at retreats.

The teachings given here are by James Low, according to the transmissions he received from his root teacher C R Lama and from other Nyingmapa lamas.

It is hoped that the costs of setting up and maintaining the website will be met by contributions (dana) in the spirit that the greatest of gifts is the gift of the dharma.

If there is some merit in this work, may it help all beings awaken.
If there is no merit, may its emptiness protect all beings from disturbance.


Anyone who is interested is welcome to read these transcripts but in order to bathe in the living stream of the dzogchen lineages, it is important to make steps to gain transmission from a living teacher.

According to the tradition it is unhelpful to use the teachings for selfish purposes.

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Latest news...


  • Looking with fresh eyes: quitting samsara's storyboard
    When we sit inside our story, we can weave these threads of continuity... But when we look directly at the phenomenology - at the moment by moment movement - we find there is nothing substantial there. This is the point where meditation really opens up.
    Date added: 01/02/2010
  • Two new translations into German
    Thanks to Petra Niehaus and Jutta Kerpen for translating into German some material already on this site in English. More translating is in progress.
    Date added: 23/01/2010
  • Le Miroir au Sens Limpide: trésor du dzogchen
    Nathalie has been a devoted and close disciple of C R Lama's for many years. She has translated this text, known in English as Being Right Here, and arranged its publication. Thank you, Nathalie
    Date added: 30/11/2009
  • Integration in Dzogchen. Freiburg, 2009
    Many people see spiritual life a bit like the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty —where all beings are a Sleeping Buddha, wrapped around by different kinds of conditioning and karma, but drawing our holy sword of truth, we will cut through and liberate them.
    Date added: 09/11/2009

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