Some people have the habit of thinking that something is bound to happen after practicing meditation a while – like going through school – that after ten or fifteen years you end up with a degree. That’s the idea in the back of people’s minds: “I can make it happen! I can do enlightenment!” Not in this case, though. You cannot make enlightenment, because enlightenment is unconstructed. Realizing the awakened state is a matter of being diligent in allowing nondual awareness to regain its natural stability. It is difficult to reach enlightenment without such diligence, without undertaking any hardship.
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
from the book The Dzogchen Primer: An Anthology of Writings by Masters of the Great Perfection
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