Dzogchen presents its path through three essential aspects that together describe how natural awareness is first revealed, then confirmed, and finally lived. The process begins with a direct introduction to the nature of mind, often called rigpa: a primordial, aware emptiness that is at once pure and luminous. This is not a conceptual understanding but an immediate recognition of the ground of being as one’s own true nature. Such introduction establishes the View, the understanding that awareness itself is primordially pure and beyond elaboration. In this way, the foundation is laid for all further practice, since without this initial recognition there is nothing authentic to maintain or integrate.

Once this nature has been introduced, the second aspect is to decide upon it with certainty and to maintain that recognition. Here, meditation is not a fabricated technique but the simple resting in natural awareness, free from manipulation. The practitioner gains confidence that this awareness does not need to be improved or altered, and gradually resolves doubt about its authenticity. Maintaining this recognition means cultivating continuous presence and non-distraction within rigpa, allowing the mind to become familiar with its own ground. Over time, this steady abiding in the View stabilizes the experience of rigpa so that it is no longer fleeting or easily obscured.

The third aspect concerns the full integration of this recognition into conduct and activity. Rather than remaining confined to formal meditation, the recognition of rigpa is allowed to permeate thoughts, emotions, and all circumstances. Conduct then becomes the natural expression of the View, as actions arise from awareness that does not cling to experiences as solid or permanent. In this way, daily life itself becomes the field of practice, and the distinction between meditation and post-meditation gradually dissolves. The three aspects—direct introduction, decisive recognition and maintenance, and integration into activity—thus function as a single, indivisible process through which natural awareness is revealed, stabilized, and embodied.