Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind
Page 8
In the present situation of impure dependent nature,
The consequence of killing is to take one’s birth
In poor, unprosperous lands.
Healing plants (their leaves and fruits and flowers),
All food and drink have little strength,
Are indigestible and dangerous to one’s life.
The consequence of theft is to be born
In regions where the harvests do not ripen,
In lands a-prey to famine, hail, and frost.
The consequence of sexual misconduct
Is a habitat that’s swampy, fouled with excrement and urine,
A birthplace that is fetid with the stench of refuse and impurity,
A cramped place, dreadful and depressing.
The consequence of lying is to find oneself
In regions that are frightening and unfavorable,
Where prosperity is wavering and one is tricked by others.
Divisive speech is cause of stark and inhospitable
Environments of cliffs, ravines, and precipices
Where traveling is hard.
The consequence of harsh speech is to be born
In barren, stony places filled with thorns and blasted trees,
And where the ground is dusty, filled with refuse,
Unhealthy, saline regions where the crops grow poor and rough.
Idle chatter is the cause of birth
In regions where the crops give no ripe fruit,
Where seasons are disordered,
In places that, unsure, are liable to change.
The consequence of covetousness is birth
In regions where plants produce more husk than grain,
Where one witnesses the passing of a time of plenty.
The consequence of ill will is to be born in places
Where the fruits and harvests have a hot and bitter taste,
In places marked by natural and abundant harms—
From kings and robbers, savages, and snakes.
To hold wrong views provokes as consequence
A birth in lands that have no mines of precious gems,
Where healing trees and plants
And flowers and fruits are scarce,
And where, deprived of all assistance,
One is friendless and protectorless.
22. The proliferating fruit of action
Means that evil actions once completed
Will provoke a disproportionate degree of suffering.
23. If briefly told, the ten nonvirtues are like poison
That, when taken slightly, moderately, or to great extent,
Produces an immense degree of pain.
I beg you, strive to spurn them as the enemies they are.
24. The ten good actions that propel one to the higher realms
Consist in virtuously and consciously
Abandoning the ten nonvirtues.
Reject all killing, stealing, sexual misconduct;
Avoid all lying and divisive calumny;
Do not indulge in idle chatter, harsh words, covetousness;
And throw far away from you ill will and wrong views.
25. These actions, when of less intensity, result in human birth.
When of moderate strength, in birth among desire-realm gods.
Actions of a great intensity are linked with the samādhis
And the formless concentrations. They bring attainment
Of the bliss of the two higher worlds.
Virtuous actions have likewise their four effects,
And by examples contrary to those just now supplied,
You will realize that the fruits of the ten virtues
Are the higher realms.
26. The ten good actions that give rise to happiness
Drive beings into higher destinies.
The ten nonvirtues, by their nature,
Precipitate a fall into an evil birth.
And so, to practice good, rejecting evil,
Is the path of worldly virtue.
It is, the Sage has said, the vehicle of gods and humankind.
Preparing happy destinies in lives to come,
It is regarded as the excellent support for liberation.
Wandering beings, you who are well favored,
Take your stand on it!
27. The supreme virtue that gives rise to liberation
Drives saṃsāra far away. It strives for peace
And utterly transcends the actions white and black
Whereby, within the wheel of life,
The high and lower states are all compounded.
The stainless causes, such as virtues that give rise to liberation,
Comprise the ten virtuous actions, the samādhis
And the formless concentrations,
The six perfections, and the rest—
All that is contained in the five paths.
Moreover, when one realizes the no-self of both persons and phenomena,
Then, through virtue that conjoins both skillful means and wisdom,
While dwelling neither in existence nor in peace,
One works for beings’ good
And gains the boundless state of buddhahood.
This yogic virtue thus goes far beyond the world.
28. While the gathering of merit is conceptual,
The gathering of wisdom is not so.
Conjoined, they purify the twofold veil
And manifest the twofold kāya.
They are the sphere of meditation and postmeditation.
They are, in common beings, stained
But are unstained in Noble Ones.
By their successive practice, liberation is obtained.
29. Buddha-potential is the basis
Of the virtue that gives rise to liberation.
Luminosity is the character of the mind.
It is the stainless element:
The potential naturally present,
Whose appearing aspect is the twofold kāya.
It has been described by nine comparisons.
The nature of compassion, present from the first,
Is the potential that may be developed,
So the Sugata has said.47
Its root is primal wisdom, luminous, self-knowing,
And it is virtue, being free of the three poisons.
30. When these two potentials wake,
Two bodhichittas are engendered perfectly.
Compassion is made manifest,
The gathering of merit on the relative level.
This is associated with the vase empowerment
And the two that follow,
And the generation stage that purifies.
To understand the empty nature
Is the gathering of ultimate primordial wisdom.
It is related to the fourth empowerment of the word
And the perfection stage, the mahāmudrā.
By means of proper meditation
And the growth of these two stages,
Defilements are transformed into primordial wisdom.
Through ever-growing virtue thus
The veils upon the buddha-element are cleansed away.
And thus is seen the spotless sunlight
Of the dharmakāya and the rūpakāya.
31. The ten virtues, the samādhis, and the formless concentrations—
The most excellent things this world affords
Make up the gathering of merit.
That which goes beyond the world,
The utter absence of conception,
Constitutes the gathering of highest wisdom.
When these fields of meditation and postmeditation
Are practiced simultaneously, together and in union,
Every excellence is gained.
32. And as with virtue that compounds existence in saṃsāra,
That which compounds peace
Has likewise been described as action.
And yet, because this peace
transcends existence,
It is free from all such action.
33. The ten virtues whereby the path is followed
Have four fruits: fully ripened,
Similar to cause, conditioning, proliferating.
34. Through practice of ten virtues with intensity
Small, moderate, or great,
A birth among the gods and humankind
Is, in the immediate term, attained
And, finally, the good that is definitive.
35. The consequence resembling the cause
Is, actively, a natural proclivity to virtue;
Passively, it is enjoyment of long life and vast possessions
And a loyal, harmonious spouse.
One is not scorned, and friends return one’s love;
One’s words are trusted, pleasant to the ears of everyone.
One is contented, loving, and has wholesome views.
36. The conditioning effect of virtue
Is to be born in perfect circumstances,
Prosperous and wonderful.
Food and drink and medicine
Are easy to digest and great in healing strength.
One’s habitat is unpolluted, and its herbs are sweetly fragrant.
It is free from danger and from harm,
And one is not deceived by others.
It is a sweet environment, where pleasant people live,
Where harvests ripen in due season with abundant fruit.
It is a smooth terrain adorned by meres and cooling lakes,
Where flowers and fruits are perfect and abundant.
It is a region where great increase in prosperity is seen,
Where things like medicines and grains
Are supreme in their taste and quantity,
Their sources excellent and plentiful,
A place secure and safe on every side.
37. Through the proliferating consequence,
Virtue is productive of yet further virtue.
Every good desire comes to fulfillment.
38. Wealth, moreover, comes from generosity;
Discipline results in happiness;
Beauty is the fruit of patience;
Diligence brings glorious qualities.
A peaceful mind results from concentration;
And through wisdom, freedom is achieved.
39. Beauty comes to those who love,
Help comes to those who have compassion,
Perfect riches are the fruits of sympathetic joy,
While purity of mind comes from impartiality.
In short, the excellent results
Of the two gatherings of merit and of wisdom
Are the temporary gaining of the higher realms
And the ultimate attainment of definitive good.
This then is the sublime path,
The chariot way of the Great Vehicle
Which brings us to the excellence
Of the Victorious Ones past, present, and to come.
40. Thus the actions that produce saṃsāra and nirvāṇa
Are based upon the mind; and mind itself is luminosity.
The mind resembles space wherein is found
No agent and no act.
All acts arise dependently.
This is what the two truths mean.
41. Pure from the beginning, not existing yet appearing,
Our actions are like artists: all is their creation.
And always do they follow us; they’re like our body’s shadow.
Like our body’s ease and pain,
They cannot be transferred to others.
Hard to reverse, they’re like the flowing water of a stream,
And, like a king, they raise beings high or bring them low.
Their range is vast like the abyss of space.
They do not change their color, light or dark,
But are like the two lotuses, the white and blue.
42. Actions, when examined, are without intrinsic being.
Yet they make, as in a dream, all kinds of joy and sorrow.
They are not real existing things, although the mind believes them so.
And yet the causal process is infallible.
Such is the deep nature of arising through dependence.
Not existent, yet not inexistent, neither is it both.
Howsoever is the deed so will its fruition be.
This is the domain of the two wisdoms,
Which behold the nature and the multiplicity of things.
It has been well explained by the Omniscient.
43. Those who scorn the law of karmic cause and fruit
Are students of the nihilistic view outside the Dharma.
They rely upon the thought that all is void;
They fall in the extreme of nothingness
And go from low to lower states.
They have embarked upon an evil path
And from the evil destinies will have no freedom,
Casting happy states of being far away.
44. “The law of karmic cause and fruit,
Compassion and the gathering of merit—
All this is but provisional teaching fit for children:
Enlightenment will not be gained thereby.
Great yogis should remain without intentioned action.
They should meditate upon reality that is like space.
Such is the definitive instruction.”
The view of those who speak like this
Is of all views the most nihilist:
They have embraced the lowest of all paths.
How strange this is!
They want a fruit but have annulled its cause.
45. If reality is but a space-like void,
What need is there to meditate?
And if it is not so, then even if one meditates
Such efforts are to no avail.
If meditation on mere voidness leads to liberation,
Even those with minds completely blank
Attain enlightenment!
But since those people have asserted meditation,
Cause and its result they thus establish!
Throw far away such faulty paths as these!
46. The true, authentic path asserts
The arising in dependence of both cause and fruit,
The natural union of skillful means and wisdom.
Through the causality of nonexistent but appearing acts,
Through meditation on the nonexistent but appearing path,
The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;
And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,
Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest.
Such is pure causality’s profound interdependence.
This is the essential pith
Of all the sūtra texts whose meaning is definitive
And indeed of all the tantras.
Through the joining of the two accumulations,
The generation and perfection stages,
Perfect buddhahood is swiftly gained.
47. Thus all the causal processes
Whereby saṃsāra is contrived should be abandoned,
And all the acts that are the cause of liberation
Should be earnestly performed.
High position in saṃsāra
And the final excellence of buddhahood
Will speedily be gained.
48. May the rain of Dharma, cooling and delightful,
Cause the two accumulations to expand
Within the field of beings’ minds;
Exhausted by the karma and defilements of saṃsāra,
May their minds today find rest.
5. THE SPIRITUAL MASTER
1. This excellent, unerring path of karmic cause and fruit
Is found when one depends upon a holy being.
From spiritual masters also come the three enlightenments
Accomplished in the three times
By th
e buddhas and their bodhisattva heirs
And by the śrāvakas and the pratyekabuddhas.
Moreover, the achievement of saṃsāra’s upper realms
And every happiness indeed derives
From following a sublime master.
Thus you should keep company with holy beings.
2. Like vines that wrap themselves round sandal trees,
People who keep company with holy ones
Become, in their turn, holy.
And like kusha grass left in a fetid marsh,
People who keep company with evil beings
Will in their turn be evil.
So keep the company of holy beings
And from bad teachers strive to keep your distance.
3. What is the outer bearing, you may ask,
Of these sublime and holy ones?
Because they are the guides of all the world,
With everyone they are in harmony.
But since they are beyond the world,
From all they are completely different.
In all the actions of their body, speech, and mind,
Everyone they utterly surpass.
4. In body, they are peaceful and relaxed,
Their conduct pure and free of fault.
Skilled they are in clearing doubts.
Their speech is pure and sweet to hear.
Their minds are utterly serene,
A treasure of omniscient primal wisdom.
Unlimited they are in spiritual qualities,
And great in learning and compassion.
Vast their wisdom is; their ways and realization are like space.
Boundless are their works,
And every link with them is meaningful.
Abandoning all weariness,
And filled with love, they labor constantly.
Rely on them, for they lead beings on an upward path.
5. Especially within the Secret Mantra,
True masters have these attributes:
They have received empowerment;
Their samaya and their vows are pure.
They understand the meaning of the tantras;
They have crossed the ocean of the pith instructions.
Of the stages of approach, accomplishment, activation,
And enlightened action they have mastery.
Of the view and meditation, conduct and result
They have experience and realization—
They have achieved the signs of warmth.
They have great love, are skilled in means,
And bring disciples to maturity and freedom.
The blessings of their lineage in massing clouds