' Non-Interaction '...

If you understand what Dzogchen is saying about non-dependent “awareness” as rigpa or Dharmakaya, as an all pervasive and “permanently changeless” cognitive field; this “changeless” description forces the fact of total “non-interaction” between such an empty awareness and it’s field of phenomena.

This is much like how reflections do not interact with the glass in a mirror. The glass is all pervasive within the field of the appearing reflections without either interacting with the other, even slightly.

This is why any form of practice or study or effort is useless. The Clear Light Nature, the only aspect which has the quality of changeless, cognitive awareness, doesn’t interact with its field of phenomena. Mental phenomena only seem “conscious” because they are fully pervaded by the changeless, Clear Light Awareness field.

This is how in Dzogchen, we say the karmic mind, the egoic self and the karmic traces have no impact upon changeless rigpa or empty, pure awareness.

It’s much like how the brightness of the moon, shining upon the surface of a pond at night, doesn’t disturb the water and how the moon’s reflection captured upon the water, doesn’t reduce the brightness of the moon.

“This clear and luminous nature of mind is as changeless as space. It is not afflicted by desire and so on, the adventitious stains, which are sprung from incorrect thoughts. The nature of space is not changed through clouds, smoke, and so on. In the same way, the tathagatagarbha, the clear and luminous nature of the minds of all beings, is changeless. It is not in the slightest altered by the fact that the veils are purified or unpurified, and so on.”

- Jamgön Kongtrul