When recognition of awareness arises, it is not as though it has been given to us by our spiritual teacher, nor is it something that was not there before and is now born in our mind. Rather, awareness is the natural continuity of something that has been present forever, the pure, void, primordial clarity of mind.
Why is it called rigpa? It is rigpa because it has a faculty of being “aware” of everything, as opposed to marigpa, “unawareness,” “basic ignorance,” which does not know anything.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Pith Instructions – Shambhala Publications, Inc.