Kadag Trekchö is a Dzogchen

Dzogchen

According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...

 term and practice meaning "thorough cut" or "cutting through". 'Kadag' (Tibetan) may be rendered as 'purity' and specifically "primordial purity". The Menngagde

Menngagde

In Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Menngagde , , is the name of one of three scriptural and lineage divisions within Dzogchen, teachings...

 or 'Instruction Class' of Dzogchen teachings are for instruction, divided into two indivisible aspects: Kadag Trekchö and Lhündrub Tögal

Lhündrub Tögal

Lhündrub Tögal is a Dzogchen term and practice which holds the semantic field "leaping over", "direct crossing" and "direct approach". The Menngagde or 'Instruction Class' of Dzogchen teachings are, for instruction, divided into two indivisible aspects: Kadag Trekchö and Tögal...

. Karma Chagme

Karma Chagme

The name Karma Chagme refers to a 17th century Tibetan Buddhist lama and to the tülku lineage which he initiated. Including the first, seven Karma Chagme tülkus have been recognized...

, however, in a departure from the norm, associates Trekchö with Semde

Semde

Semde translated as "mind division", "mind class" or "mind series" is the name of one of three scriptural and lineage divisions within Atiyoga, Dzogchen or the Great Perfection which is itself the pinnacle of the ninefold division of practice according to the Nyingma school of Tibetan...

. He further equates Trekchö with Mahāmudrā

Mahamudra

Mahāmudrā literally means "great seal" or "great symbol." It "is a multivalent term of great importance in later Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism" which "also occurs occasionally in Hindu and East Asian Buddhist esotericism."The name refers to the way one who...

, which is more typical.

Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche (Schmidt, 2002: p. 38) states:

Trekchö is the thorough cut of cutting through, cutting the obscurations completely to pieces, like slashing through them with a knife. So the past thought has ceased, the future thought hasn't yet arisen, and the knife is cutting through this stream of present thought. But one doesn't keep hold of this knife either; one lets the knife go, so there is a gap. When you cut through again and again in this way, the string of thought falls to pieces. If you cut a rosary in a few places, at some point it doesn't work any longer.

The "string of thought" and "stream of present thought" in the aforementioned quotation is cognate with the noise or 'obscurations' (Sanskrit: Kleśa) inherent within the mindstream

Mindstream

Mindstream in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment "continuum" of awareness. There are a number of terms in the Buddhist literature that may well be rendered "mindstream"...

 (Sanskrit: citta santana). The 'thorough cut' of this 'cutting through' is to re-establish the Dzogchen View of the primordial state of the nature of mind, the essence of the Buddha-nature

Buddha-nature

Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle , is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas...

 which is cognate with Dharmakaya

Dharmakaya

The Dharmakāya is a central idea in Mahayana Buddhism forming part of the Trikaya doctrine that was possibly first expounded in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñā-pāramitā , composed in the 1st century BCE...

.

Trekchöd - Everything is fundamentally without entity. Through no practice yoga one realizes the Great Liberation in its self-manifestation. Togal - Proceeding from the foundation of Trekchöd, it is practiced with six kinds of light which produce the full Enlightenment.

Preliminary practices

Trekchöd has a specific 'preliminary practice

Ngöndro

Ngöndro refers to the preliminary, preparatory or foundational 'practices' or 'disciplines' common to all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and also to Bön...

' (Wylie: sngon 'gro) which may be rendered into English as "differentiating saṃsāra and nirvāṇa" (Korday Rushen; ).

Intrinsic awareness

Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...

, Karma Lingpa

Karma Lingpa

Karma Lingpa , a great tertön, is embraced as a reincarnation of Chokro Luyi Gyaltsen , a great master, and accepted as the revealer of the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. Karma Lingpa took body in southeast Tibet as the eldest son of Nyida Sangye , the great Tantric practitioner...

, Gyurme Dorje, Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa (2005: p. 480) define 'intrinsic awareness' or 'apperception

Apperception

Apperception is any of several aspects of perception and consciousness in such fields as psychology, philosophy and epistemology.-Meaning in psychology:...

' which is a rendering of the Tibetan Wylie 'rang-rig' and the Sanskrit 'svasaṃvitti' or 'svasaṃvedana' according to the precedent established in Indian Buddhist epistemology and in the writings of the lauded logicians Dignāga

Dignaga

Dignāga was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic.He was born into a Brahmin family in Simhavakta near Kanchi Kanchipuram), and very little is known of his early years, except that he took as his spiritual preceptor Nagadatta of the Vatsiputriya school, before being...

and Dharmakīrti

Dharmakirti

Dharmakīrti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn of the 7th century,...

that this technical:

...term svasaṃvedana refers to the apperceptive or reflexive faculty of consciousness, for which reason it is sometimes rendered as 'reflexive awareness' or 'apperceptive awareness'. However, in the view of the Great Perfection (rdzog-pa chen-po) and in the context of the present work [The Tibetan Book of the Dead], the same term refers to the fundamental innate mind in its natural state of spontaneity and purity, beyond the alternating states of motion and rest and the subject-object dichotomy. It is therefore rendered here as 'intrinsic awareness'. As such, intrinsic awareness gives the meditator access to pristine cognition [ye-shes; jñāna] or the buddha-mind [thugs, citta] itself, and it stands in direct contrast to fundamental ignorance ([ma-rig-pa,] avidyā), which is the primary cause of rebirth in cyclic existence (['khor-ba,] samsara). The direct introduction to intrinsic awareness is a distinctive teaching within the Nyingma school.... This practice is a central component of the Esoteric Instruction Class ([man-ngag-gi sde,] upadeśa[varga]) of Atiyoga, where it is known as Cutting Through Resistance (Khregs-chod).