by Longchenpa
In brief, there are three root samayas:
Those of body, speech, and mind.
Train yourself in them, maintaining a pure mind.
30. At the full moon and the new moon,
And on the eighth and twenty-ninth days of the month,
As well as on the tenth days of the waxing and the waning moon,
By day, by night respectively,103
Labor in the practice of approach and of accomplishment,
Confessing and restoring, offering the sacred feast.
31. Persistently observe the deep and crucial points
Pertaining to the yoga of the wind-mind, channels, essence-drops,
And make of it the very essence of your practice.
Meditate upon the paths of bliss,
Of luminosity and no-thought, and their union.
Thus you will become a vajra holder
And a perfect buddha in this very life.104
32. Thus through this supremely secret
Essence unsurpassed,105
May every being dwell within the city
Of the glorious Heruka.
Exhausted in saṃsāra through their karma and defilement,
May their minds today find rest.
10. THE VIEW THAT DWELLS IN NEITHER OF THE TWO EXTREMES, THE WISDOM WHEREBY THE NATURE OF THE GROUND IS REALIZED
1. The practitioner who thus unites
The generation and perfection stages
Gains entry to the unborn, empty nature of phenomena.
2. Now all phenomenal existence,
All the things of both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa,
Are from the outset without self
And are beyond conceptual construction.
Through ignorantly clinging to them,
Beings wander in existence.
Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, various joys and sorrows,
Do indeed occur. Yet in the very moment of arising,
They are empty in their nature.
Know that they are like illusions.
Know they are like dreams.
3. Though all the things appearing outwardly
Occur within the mind, they are not the mind itself,
But neither are they something other than the mind.
Although by force of habit there may seem to be
Duality of apprehender-apprehended,
In the moment it occurs,
This duality has no reality.
It is like a face and its reflection in a mirror.106
4. Although a face appears upon the surface of the mirror,
It is not there. And yet no other thing
Has cast its form upon the glass.
While not being there, its likeness there appears
And is perceived as different from the mirror.
Know that manifold phenomena are all like this.
5. If left unexamined, things are quite convincing,
But when they are investigated, they become elusive.
When thoroughly examined, they transcend
All speech, all thought, all formulation.
Whether as existing or as not existing,
There’s no finding them.
Neither are they beyond, nor are they not beyond,
The ontological extremes.
6. It is in the manner of illusion
That their arising and their dwelling
And their ceasing all appear.
But from the very instant they occur,
This same arising and the rest have no intrinsic being.
They are like the water of a mirage
Or the moon reflected in a pool.107
7. In particular, the six impure migrations
Appear but have no true existence.
They are deceptive forms, the products of habitual tendencies,
Like falling hairs that those with visual ailments see.
And just as those who wish to be restored
Must purify their phlegm,
In just the same way, those who wish to dissipate illusion
Must clear away the cataracts of ignorance.
8. The antidote for this is self-cognizing primal wisdom.
By this means you come to clear conviction
Of the empty nature of saṃsāra and its habits.
And you know with certainty
That what is empty does appear.
You understand the nonduality
Of appearance and emptiness,
And thus you know the sense of the two truths.
By dispelling both extremes and striving for the middle way,
You come to freedom in the sky-like state,
Abiding neither in existence nor in peace.
This is ultimate reality sublime and quintessential:
The fundamental nature of the Natural Great Perfection.
9. Appearance in itself does neither good nor harm,
But clinging to appearance binds you in existence.
Thus there is no need to search through manifold appearances.
Just cut the root of mind that clings to them.108
10. The mind does seem to be and yet lacks real existence.
When searched for, it’s not found;
When looked for, it’s not seen.
No color does it have, no shape; it cannot be identified.
Not outside or within; throughout the triple time,
It is not born, it does not cease.
And it is not located anywhere on this side or on that.
Groundless, rootless, it is not a thing.
There is no pointing to it: mind is inconceivable.
11. The past mind cannot be observed;
The mind yet to be born is nowhere to be found;
The present mind does not remain:
In all the times, the mind is just the same.
Do not let the mind search for the mind. Just let it be.
12. Thoughts, negating or affirming,
Are themselves the objects of the momentary consciousness.
In their very moment of appearing,
They are not outside nor indeed within—
The object sought, perversely, is the subject seeking—
In searching for itself, there’s never any finding.
13. Primordially unborn and uncontrived,
It does not dwell, it does not cease.
The mind itself, throughout the triple time,
Has neither ground nor root: it is a state of emptiness.
But being the foundation for unobstructed manifold arising,
It appears unceasingly.
Yet it is not a thing endowed with features;
Thus it has no permanent existence,
Yet to its arising there’s no end.
Therefore it is not a nihilistic emptiness.
Neither is it both of these nor is it neither:
There is no describing it.
It does not exist as this or that;
In no way therefore can it be identified.
Its nature should be understood
As pure primordially.
14. It is not there when you examine it;
It is not there when you do not examine it.
It has no other nature.
In the primordial essence of the mind,
You can find no good or bad,
No taking or rejecting, and no hope or fear.
What use is there therefore
In checking and investigating it?
Do not seek it anxiously in the three times.
15. The mind is stirred up by ideas, which are like chaff.
It is agitated by distractions, which are like the gusting wind.
Thus there is no access to this nature.
But if you rest correctly in the pure accomplished mind
Beyond arriving and departing,
Whence there’s nothing to remove,
To which there’s nothing to be added;
If you rest in primal wisdom
All-creating, free from stain,
You will behold this nature as it is.
16. What use to you now are the various tenet systems?
What use to you these thoughts, these words, these propositions?
The ultimate does not exist nor is it nonexistent.
It has no center or circumference.
It cannot be divided into vehicles.
It is like space, immaculate, unlimited, and unconfined.
To say that it exists or else does not exist
Is to be deluded.
How can you explain what lies beyond expression?
In such a pointless exploit there is nothing but fatigue.
17. It would be like imagining a shining pleasure grove
Aloft, suspended, in the middle of the sky,
Adorned with flowers and fruits, cascading waterfalls—
And disputing all its categories
With their concordant and discordant classes.
18. The nature of the mind unstained and pure
Is never seen by stained manipulation and contrivance.
What use here are the generation and perfection stages?
Meditation and clear concentration
Do no more than spoil it!
19. In the mind itself,
The nature that is pure primordially,
There are no obscurations and no antidotes thereto.
There’s nothing to remove and nothing to acquire.
So leave aside conceptual targets.
There’s no inside, there’s no outside;
There’s no object apprehended and no subject apprehending.
Therefore give up clinging.
You cannot recognize this nature saying “this.”
So pare away all your assumptions.
There is no attaining it, and there’s no nonattaining it.
Abandon therefore hope and fear.
20. Within awareness, never stirring from the ground,
All arisings due to various conditions
Naturally subside as soon as they appear,
Like ripples on the water.
They are one with dharmakāya.
21. When I watch the thoughts as they arise,
The watcher vanishes.
I search for it but nowhere is it found.
Neither is the searcher seen—
There is just a freedom from conceptual elaboration.
There’s no agent; there’s no object of its action.
22. I have come to the primordial state,
Which is like space, immaculate.
There is no going back, and where might I now go?
I have reached the place of the exhaustion of phenomena.
No more coming [to saṃsāra] can there be.
And where I am now none can see.109
23. Knowing this, I want for nothing else.
Whoever comes to freedom
Has, like me, cut through delusion.
Now I have no further questions;
The ground and root of mind are gone.
There is no goal, no clinging;
There’s no ascertaining; there’s no “it is this.”
Instead, there is an all-embracing evenness,
Openness, relaxedness, equality.
Now that I have realized it, I sing my song.
Stainless rays of light have thus shone out110
And revealing it, have now departed.
24. Watch, my friends, the objects that appear.
All are unoriginate, all equal in their emptiness—
Just as various things reflected in a glass
Are one and all the same, the mirror’s single sheen.
25. Watch the consciousness discerning these appearances.
The mind is like the sky, beyond assertion and negation.
And just as in the sky the clouds take shape and then dissolve,
With no change to the sky, which stays forever pure,
The nature of the mind is likewise always pure;
It is primordially enlightened,
Uncreated, naturally present, ultimate reality.
26. The object and the mind itself are not two things.
They’re one in primal purity.
Therein, adopting and rejecting are not two.
There’s no one-sided affirmation or denial.
All appearance is devoid of true existence;
All arising is by nature empty.
Everything is equal and beyond all reference.
27. Objects of the senses
Are appearances, various and uncertain,
And likewise mind itself cannot be pointed at.
It is the great state free of all extremes.
Know this as the Natural Great Perfection.
28. For so it is regarding everything—
Phenomenal existence, nirvāṇa, and saṃsāra:
Past phenomena are no more seen;
In this they are all equal.
Future things have not been born;
In this they are all equal.
Present things do not endure;
In this they are all equal.
Timeless are the three times,
Destitute of all foundation.
In this they are all equal.
All things from the outset are perfect equality.
29. Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, all phenomenal existence,
Are images reflected in the mind.
The nature of the mind
Is the great space of dharmadhātu—
And space throughout the three times
Is immutable by very nature.
This unchanging nature is primordial nirvāṇa:
The enlightened state within the ground—Samantabhadra.
30. Appearances and emptiness are not divided.
Such is the primordial state of things,
Which, neither one nor many, cannot be conceived
And lie beyond the reach of thought.
Neither to one side nor to the other do they fall;
In this they are all equal.
They are equal in appearance,
Equal in their emptiness,
Equal in their truth, and equal in their falsity,
Equal in existence,
Equal in their nonexistence,
And equal in transcending every limit.
All is one expanse of primal purity.111
31. All mental imputations are by nature empty.
All names are adventitious labels.
Specific features are but superimpositions.
There’s no dividing truth from falsity.
The object and the mind are unrelated;
They do not stain or qualify each other.
There is no knower and there is no known.112
32. In just the same way as a face’s form
Appears within a looking glass,
The aspects of a thing arise
Within sensorial consciousness.
Through taking them as real
Both craving and aversion come,
Delusions of saṃsāra.
Investigate more closely:
The mind has not gone out toward the thing,
And neither does the aspect of the thing
Arise within the mind.
They’re not two separate “things,”
For both are destitute of real existence.113
33. All things are one—the same—
In lacking an intrinsic being.
All cognitions are the same:
Not one of them is graspable.
Phenomena and mind are not two entities:
They are one in their primordial purity.
For investigation and analysis there is no need,
For from the outset, all is one, a state of openness and freedom.
34. Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are not two;
They’re one within the mind’s expanse—
As all the rivers in the sea are one.
All things are of an equal taste
And in their inborn nature, all are one.
The change and flux of the four elements
Are one within the space where they occur.
Asseverations and negations—all are one
Within the space of emptiness.
All things that arise subside all by themselves;
In this they are not different
But are one in purity—
Just like all the ripples in a single stream.
Those who realize this are wise indeed.
35. Manifold phenomena
Ungraspable in their identity
Are but reflected images
Not different in their nature.
This play, which in itself
Is neither good nor bad,
Is not to be accepted nor to be rejected.
Do not grasp at it with dualistic mind
But rest at ease.
36. Perceptions, which are without certainty,
Arise regarding objects of the senses, which themselves cannot be pointed out.
Awareness that forbears to cling to them
Is one vast open state of letting go.
It is the fundamental nature
Of the Natural Great Perfection.
37. Therefore all phenomena
Are equal in their nature.
Be convinced of this, and without clinging
Settle in a state beyond the ordinary mind.
Exhausted by imposing chains of partiality
Upon awareness free from partiality,
May your mind today find rest.
11. THE PATH: STAINLESS MEDITATIVE CONCENTRATION
1. When the equality of things is seen,
To rest correctly in this nature is of great importance.
2. Meditation is explained to beings
According to their level of ability.
Those of highest capability
Gain freedom though the realization of the fundamental nature.
They behold this nature in a manner that is free
From both a subject and an object of the meditation.
Phenomenal appearance becomes for them
The ground’s free openness.
Their minds are spared from all exertion.
Awareness free from biased leaning
Flows like an unceasing stream.
3. There is no pause in meditation.
No difference “in or out of session” can be recognized.
All is free and open, Samantabhadra’s field,
And free of measure and description—