Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind
Page 10
Your debts to them that have accrued
From time without beginning are discharged.
Especially, all harmful demons are appeased,
And all the troubles they provoke are pacified.
Think that they are all content,
That rays of light shine from the guests
And, touching you, remove all evil forces,
Obstacles, and illnesses
And ransom you from death.
Consider that accomplishment is gained.
40. Knowing then that all is empty,
That all is but your state of mind;
And knowing that your mind is empty too,
Remain within the dharmadhātu
In the state of even meditation.
Then make the dedication
Knowing everything to be illusory.
41. By this means all adversity is pacified
And the two great accumulations are perfected.
The two kinds of obscuration are both purified.
Measureless will be the blessings you receive,
And realization will take birth within your mind.
No longer clinging to your “self,”
You will strongly wish to leave saṃsāra.
You will live from day to day, quite free from cares.
Your wishes will come true, and all existence
Will arise as your own teacher.
There will be no pain at your life’s end;
The luminosity arising at the time of death
Will be accomplished,
Or you will come to freedom in the intermediate state.
The twofold goal you will achieve and every excellence.
For all these reasons therefore,
Strongly meditate upon your teacher.
42. “It is better,” it is said,
“To meditate upon a teacher for a single instant
Than to undertake the generation stage for an entire kalpa.”
The basis of all glorious spiritual wealth,
Your teacher is replete with sublime qualities:
Massing clouds of benefit and bliss
Whence perfect nectar rains down on the triple world.
If this is what you want, rely upon a master
Who is faithful and compassionate.
43. To pacify the torment of your mind’s defilement,
To which you have grown used from time without beginning,
Be like Sudhana and Sadāprarudita: seek the Dharma!50
Banish all fatigue! Rely upon a spiritual master!
44. May this profitable music of the thousand strings
Of Indra’s harp drop down like nectar on the ears
Of fortunate beings awearied by their wrong and wayward paths.
May their minds today find rest.
6. REFUGE
1. Relying thus upon a spiritual master,
Train by stages on the path of liberation.
Refuge is the sure foundation of all paths.
Beings of small scope dread the lower states;
The two of medium scope are frightened by existence in saṃsāra;
While those of great scope see saṃsāra’s pain in all its aspects
And cannot bear that other beings suffer.
What they fear is their own peace and happiness.
They thus embark upon the Great Way of the Buddha’s heirs.
And so there are three kinds of being who take refuge;
There are three approaches: ordinary, supreme, and unsurpassed.
2. The length of time that beings go for refuge
Depends upon their attitude. Those of small capacity
Take refuge till they gain the fruit of happiness in their next life.
The two of middle scope take refuge in the immediate term
For their present life and ultimately till they gain
The fruit of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha paths.
Those of supreme scope take refuge permanently
Until they gain enlightenment,
Until they gain primordial wisdom,
Measureless and inconceivable.
3. There are two kinds of refuge.
First, the common, causal refuge,
Then uncommon or resultant refuge.
They are pledges that respectively relate
To cause and fruit.
They are so defined according to the difference
That distinguishes the causal vehicle
(Which sees the fruit as something in the future),
From the Vajrayāna, where the fruit is gained immediately,
Within the present moment—
For one’s mind itself is the result.
The “resultant refuge” spoken of
Within the causal vehicle of exposition
Resembles that of Vajrayāna
Only in its name. For it is part of causal refuge.51
4. The object of the causal refuge is the Triple Gem.
The Buddha is the supreme nirmāṇakāya
Adorned with all the major and the minor marks.
The Dharma is twofold.
First of all, the spotless Dharma of transmission
Is the teachings of the different vehicles of sūtra and of tantra
And the sacred scriptures that appear in written form.
5. The scriptures of the sūtras have twelve branches:
The sūtras, the poetic summaries,
Predictions, and didactic verse,
Discourses delivered with a special purpose,
Life stories, and histories,
Specific declarations, lengthy expositions,
Tales of Buddha’s previous lives,
And topics of specific knowledge,
Together with profound unprecedented teachings.
6. Grouped within the tantras
Are the tantras of austerity: Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga.
Then there are the father, mother, nondual tantras,
Which relate to skillful methods, to wisdom,
And to their inseparability—
These three great yogas are the inner tantras.
All these teachings and their scriptures
Are the Dharma of transmission.
7. The Dharma of realization comprises grounds and paths,
The generation and perfection stages,
The power of dhāraṇī,
And the concentrations with the essence of primordial wisdom.
Boundless are the ways of skillful means
That have the nature of compassion.
8. Perfect Joy, the Immaculate, the Luminous,
The Radiant, the Hard to Keep, the Clearly Manifest,
The Far Progressed, and the Immovable,
The Perfect Intellect, and Cloud of Dharma:
These are the ten grounds belonging to the path of learning.
Universal Light, the eleventh,
Is the ground of the nirmāṇakāya
Mentioned in the causal vehicle.
In the Vajrayāna, many presentations of the grounds—
Twelve or more—are posited,
According to the way their qualities are classified.52
9. The sacred Dharma, deep domain of mind,
A sun of flawless light,
Is the five paths: accumulation, joining,
Seeing, meditation, no more learning;
And the generation and perfection stages and the rest.
10. Śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, grouped in their four pairs,53
And bodhisattvas who reside upon the grounds
Constitute the outer Saṅgha.
The ḍākas and ḍākinīs and the adepts of the Secret Mantra54
Are said to be the inner Saṅgha.
11. These then are the objects of your concentration:
Visualize them in the sky before you.
Especially consider that your teacher
Is a buddha and thus the chief of refuges.
Make offerings to
them: material, mental, secret.
Then in company with every being,
Join your palms respectfully and say:
“In my Teacher, in the Buddha, Dharma, and the Saṅgha,
I take refuge for the sake of others till enlightenment is gained.”
Repeat this many times and from the bottom of your heart.
12. The refuge objects show their pleasure, radiating light,
Which purifies the veils obscuring the three doors
Of others and yourself.
Thus consider that accomplishment is gained.
By this means the gathering of merit is achieved;
The rūpakāya is accomplished.
13. The final and resultant refuge is the dharmakāya.
It is the essence of the Buddha, Dharma, and Assembly;
It is the ultimate divinity, the luminosity of your own mind
Free from all conceptual construction.
14. The way to take this refuge is as follows:
After taking causal refuge,
Consider everything to be your mind.
In truth the one who thus takes refuge
And the refuge taken are not two.
Rest in meditative evenness within this state of nonduality.
If you think the object of your refuge and your mind
Are separate, then your refuge is not ultimate.
Resultant refuge is beyond all hope and expectation.
15. Thus the gathering of wisdom is perfected;
Thus the dharmakāya is achieved.
Subsequently see all things as dream visions and illusions.
Then dedicate your merit.
16. Each kind of refuge has its precepts.
In the case of causal refuge,
At the cost of life or realm, or for sake of some reward,
You must not forsake the teacher and the Triple Gem.
When you have taken refuge in a teacher,
You must not deceive him, worthy as he is of reverence.
Holy beings should be neither criticized nor denigrated.
Taking refuge in the Buddha,
You should not worship worldly gods.
Taking refuge in the Dharma,
You should do no harm to living beings.
Taking refuge in the Saṅgha,
You should not consort with those of extreme views.
And with devotion you should also venerate
The forms that represent your teacher,
The images of Buddha, Dharma, Saṅgha,
Calling them to mind by day and night,
At all times taking refuge.
17. According to the precepts of resultant refuge,
You should train at all times
In the equality of all phenomena.
You should not think in terms of good or bad,
Taking or rejecting that which is of great or lesser worth.
You should not trust your mind’s elaborations,
But cleanse them in the natural state of ultimate reality.
All should be experienced as a maṇḍala spontaneous and perfect.
18. Refuge is relinquished, in a sense,
When the time for taking it is passed,55
But it is indeed abandoned through wrong view.
Through the spoiling of the precepts
You will fall to lower states.
Therefore, rule yourself with care and mindfulness,
Adopting and rejecting as you should.
19. All other refuges deceive.
Perceiving this, you should have faith
In Buddha, most compassionate.
Thus you will be guarded, free from fear,
In all the sequence of your lifetimes.
What greater source of benefit and happiness exists?
20. Within the ground of pure, devoted mind,
Well sprinkled with the rain of merit and of wisdom,
The shoots will prosper of the pure expanse of ultimate reality56
And ripen as the perfect crop of buddhahood.
21. Those who, having taken refuge,
Have the virtuous ways of Dharma
Are replete with moral conscience and respect for others.
They are circumspect and mindful, with a host of other qualities.
Accompanied by clouds of dhāraṇī,57
The sun of wisdom rises in their minds.
Even in their dreams, they see the objects of their refuge
And never part from them.
They remember their past lives
And are of a good family adorned with wealth.
22. All beings take delight in them; they gain the twofold goal.
And they themselves at last become the refuge of all beings.
Of everyone they are the friends and helpers,
Holders of the riches of the triple kāya.
23. If the excellence of taking refuge were to have a form,
It would far exceed the confines of the sky.
Unbounded are its merits.
Taking refuge is the ground and base of every good.
Who among the wise would not rely on it?
24. Refuge is the friend
Of all who leave behind their faults and journey on to peace.
Bow down your head with faith a hundredfold
And go for refuge to the supreme guides
Who in the three worlds are a field of merit,
Are wish-fulfilling trees
And sources of both benefit and happiness.
25. Through this proclamation
Of the supreme and greatly blissful qualities of refuge,
May every being properly assume
The conduct of sublime and holy ones.
Exhausted through relying
Upon evil objects, vile and false,
May their minds today find rest.
7. THE FOUR UNBOUNDED ATTITUDES
1. Those who thus have taken refuge
Spread upon the ground of love
The flowers of compassion,
Which in the cooling shade of joy
Are moistened with pure waters of impartiality.
They train their minds that through them they may be
Of benefit to wandering beings.
2. If love, compassion, joy, impartiality
Are not connected with the path to liberation,
They are the four divine abidings, causes of saṃsāra.58
But if they are connected with the path that leads to peace,
They lead beyond the ocean of existence.
Thus they are the four unbounded attitudes.
3. They focus on the whole infinity of beings
As well as on the ultimate condition of phenomena.
Thus they have a twofold all-embracing form:
They are both referential and nonreferential.
4. The four divine abidings are limited in scope.
The beings they envisage are but few.
In their focus and their form they are impure
And, being partial, are the cause
Of the celestial world of Brahmā.
But the four unbounded attitudes are free of partiality:
They are directed at the state of liberation.
Let those who have compassion train in them.
5. Those who are not happy, those worn down by sorrow,
Those who have both happiness and wealth,
And those who love the close and hate the far—
Such are the respective fields
Of love and of compassion,
Of sympathetic joy, and of impartiality.
The forms of these four attitudes are thus the wish
That happiness be gained, that sorrow be removed,
That joy should not be lost,
That one should be of wholesome and impartial mind.
6. In the meditation on them there is no fixed order.
Beginners on the other hand
Should start with training in imp
artiality.
Once they realize the equality of beings who are close and far,
They should proceed to meditate upon the other three.
7. With all beings as its focus, the meditation’s form
Consists of this consideration:
“O mind, you are attached to father, mother, friends.
Your enemies you hate, and in this way you are defective.
Wandering in endless and beginningless saṃsāra,
As father, mother, friend, these enemies of yours
Once brought you benefit.
Will you now return their kindness with malevolence?
And these, your present friends, were once your harmful foes.
The suffering they brought to you is with you even now.
How does it then make sense to do them good in recompense?
And all the others in between
Have been both friend and enemy.
They may have helped, they may have harmed:
No point is there in hatred or attachment.”
8. Therefore, at the outset,
Place your loved ones in the midposition of neutrality
And set aside attachment.
And for your enemies, as though they too were neutral,
Rid yourself of hatred.
Have no “near and far.”
Then eliminate your ignorance
Of regarding beings neutrally as neither good nor bad.
Train yourself in what will free you from saṃsāra:
The intention to remove impartially
The afflictions that torment all wandering beings.
9. In wanting to be happy and to flee their pains,
All beings are the same.
And yet in their confusion they contrive
The causes of their suffering.
Alas! May all afflictions of unhappy beings
And all their evil tendencies subside.
May they have an evenness of mind.
May all embodied beings,
Tormented by strong craving and aversion,
Be freed from hatred and desire
And have minds for which
The near and far are equalized.
Thinking thus, first meditate upon a single being,
Then on two, then three.
Beginning with the beings of one region,
Proceed then to one continent and then all four.
Then meditate on the entire universe—
Increasing it a thousand times, then multiplied again
A second thousand times, and then a third.