How to Read This Book

The book has four parts, and each builds on the one before. Part I looks for the observer and finds vividness without a viewer. Part II begins with the habit that keeps the sense of a substrate alive, examines the logics that produce it, and then the three candidates most often offered for one. Part III turns the analysis on the eight extremes, on identity and convention, and on the two modes of seeing. Part IV takes up the fourth assumption and the Dzogchen phrase "beyond cause and effect," and ends with the taste of pacified reification.

Readers who want the argument straight through can read the chapters in order. Each opens by naming what the previous chapter left unresolved, so the thread is not lost.

Readers who want to test the argument as they go can use the exercises that appear in the text. The chariot, the red patch, the bell, the candle and the meal are all invitations to look. The looking is more useful than the reading, and it is worth stopping to do it.

Readers who want a step-by-step path can follow the Beginner's Companion in Appendix C. Its eleven rounds run alongside the narrative chapters and return to the same examples.

Readers who want the sources can go to the appendices. Appendix A indexes the verses cited in the chapters. Appendix B gives the glossary, which should be read whenever a Dzogchen or Sanskrit term is unfamiliar. Appendix D lists the references. Where a passage depends on a specific translation, the reference names it.

The book is written so that it can be read in a few sittings, but it is not meant to be finished quickly. The argument returns to the same examples from different angles, and each return is meant to be looked at again.