When monks [act] like pigs and make women pregnant,
When virtuous actions generate and sustain resentment,
When the most noble of monks takes a bride,
When factionalism and wars are widespread,
At that time there is no doubt that all those bereft of such instructions
Will fall into the inferior existences.
So to benefit the sentient beings of this degenerate age,
I have committed [this cycle of teachings] to writing,
And concealed them at Mount Gampodar.
In that age, a supremely fortunate son will be born.
His father will have the name Accomplished Master Nyinda,
And he will be the courageous “Karma Lingpa”.
On his right thigh there will be a mole,
Resembling the eye of pristine cognition,
And he will be born in the dragon or snake year,
Into a heroic family line, the fruit of past good actions.
May that fortunate person encounter this [teaching]!
‘But he [Karma Lingpa] should not publicly teach the cycles of
The Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation through [Recognition of] Enlightened Intention
To anyone at all, even by whispering into the wind,
And so it should remain until the time of the third lineage holder.
Obstacles will arise if these [teachings] are publicly taught!
However, he should impart the cycle of the
Great Compassionate One: Lotus Peaceful and Wrathful Deities
To all of his fortunate students!
‘If the oral instructions of the lineage issuing from the third generation lineage holder
Are kept secret for seven years, there will be no obstacles.
When seven years have passed,
That [third generation successor] may properly impart to others
The empowerments and practical application of the [abridged] cycle,
The [Great] Liberation [by Hearing] during the Intermediate States.
Then, when nine years have passed, the [complete] cycle of the
Natural Liberation through [Recognition of] Enlightened Intention
Should be imparted gradually, not all at once!
‘These treasures will be extracted in the region of Dakpo, in Southern Kongpo,
And they will be concentrated for the sake of living beings,
In the region of Draglong, in Upper Kongpo.
Karma Lingpa’s activity on behalf of living beings will ripen in the north!’
THE LIFE OF KARMA LINGPA
Although the exact dates of Karma Lingpa are unknown, his birth and death have been accurately placed within the fourteenth century. The following passages describing his life and those of his immediate successors are taken from Gyarawa Namka Chokyi Gyeltsen’s fifteenth-century Jewel Garland: An Abridged History of the Lineage (pp. 40ff.). Of particular interest is the discovery of two distinct cycles of treasure-teachings, the well-known Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention , and the Great Compassionate One: Lotus Peaceful and Wrathful Deities. The latter is no longer extant in this form, although it appears to have been the source for the masked drama contained in Chapter 13 of the present work.
Karma Lingpa
[Revered as an emanation of the great translator Chokrolui Gyeltsen], Karma Lingpa was born at Khyerdrup, above Dakpo in Southern Tibet. He was the eldest son of the accomplished master Nyinda Sangye, an upholder of the mantra tradition and a treasure-finder in his own right.
In his fifteenth year, the prophetic declaration and the auspicious coincidence came together. From Mount Gampodar, which resembles a dancing god, he extracted the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention, along with the Great Compassionate One: Lotus Peaceful and Wrathful Deities and other treasures.
Unfortunately others spoke ill of him because he did not form an auspicious relationship with the intended consort who had been prophesised for him in connection with his discovery of these treasure-teachings. He did have one son, but because he showed a yellow scroll [containing his treasures] to his student before the time when he was destined to impart the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention, it is said he encountered life-threatening obstacles.
Karma Lingpa was endowed with innumerable attributes, and dwelt as the very embodiment of unimpeded enlightened activity. So, knowing of his own untimely death, he said with prescience: ‘In the near future, many marks in the form of lotus flowers will appear on my body!’, and he also made numerous other clairvoyant statements. Then, the next year, when he was on the point of death, he granted the empowerments and transmissions of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention, to his son alone, and not to any others, saying ‘You should entrust this teaching to a saintly person who maintains the commitments and has the name Nyinda. His actions for the welfare of living beings will be most extensive!’ Making many such prophecies, Karma Lingpa passed away.
Thus the first lineage holder was Karma Lingpa’s own son, Nyinda Choje, the author of Chapter 1 of the present work. The second-generation lineage holder, Lama Nyinda Ozer of Tsikar Monastery in Longpo, was born in 1409 (earth female ox year), and he is said to have written down the text contained in Chapter 1 of the present work. It is the third-generation lineage holder Gyarawa Namka Chokyi Gyatso who has the distinction of being the first person to publicly teach the treasures of Karma Lingpa. The transmissions of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities and The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States that eventually came to permeate the entire Tibetan plateau can all trace their roots back to his teaching activity, particularly at Menmo and Thangdrok monasteries in Kongpo.
The extensive dispersion of the lineage throughout Tibet and the Himalayan region that issued from Gyarawa has been recently documented, along with visual charts, by Bryan J. Cuevas in his work The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. We will not therefore describe this again here. However, one important figure, from the perspective of the literary history, is Rigdzin Nyima Drakpa (1647-1710), who in his later years, at Takmogang and Chakru, began transcribing and collating the various texts associated with Karma Lingpa’s cycle. It is clear from the various extant lineage prayers that he was directly responsible for standardising the shorter anthology entitled The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States in its present form.
Rigdzin Nyima Drakpa’s lineage was particularly influential in the nomadic areas of Sok Dzong, where the mantrins of the Kabgye Lhakhang even now maintain the lineage of his teachings, and in Dzachuka, where his teacher Dzogchen Pema Rikdzin founded Dzogchen Monastery in 1685. He also formed a spiritual rapport with Terdak Lingpa, on account of which the transmissions of Tsele, Lhalung and Mindroling all converged in his own son Orgyan Tendzin. Subsequently, the teachings of the Karma Lingpa tradition were passed on from Mindroling to Dzogchen in the following line of transmission: Pema Gyurme Gyatso, Gyelse Ratna Vija, Dzogchen II Gyurme Thekchok Tendzin, Pema Kundrol Namgyel and Dzogchen III Ngedon Tendzin Zangpo. The last named was responsible for preparing the first xylographic edition of The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States, at Dzogchen Monastery in the mid-eighteenth century.
EDITIONS AND CONTENT OF THE GREAT LIBERATION BY HEARING IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATES
The diverse strands of the lineage stemming from Karma Lingpa and Gyarawa, summarised above, ensured that their legacy would flourish throughout Tibet and in the neighbouring sub-Himalayan regions of Northern Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. The earliest texts which these spiritual successions imparted through the generations were handwritten manuscripts, including a great many local and anonymous supplements. Yet, as Bryan Cuevas has rightly observed, ‘most of the available recensions of [Karma Lingpa’s] Peaceful and Wrathful Deities come to us in the form of xylographic prints and facsimile reproductions from blocks carved only
in the last two centuries’. Unfortunately, the scribal errors that have crept into many of these ‘standard’ editions subsequently acquired great currency.
At present, the most extensive extant version of the Peace ful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention is not a block-print, but the manuscript version from the library of the late Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, who in the 1960s had his scribe prepare an elegant three-volume edition on the basis of the two volumes in his possession, which were apparently of Katok provenance. This manuscript contains sixty-four distinct texts, which are arranged sequentially under the categories of history, empowerment, generation stage, perfection stage, introductions (according to the Great Perfection), path of skilful means, and protector liturgies. Although it is the most extensive version available, this manuscript is by no means exhaustive — for there are other, smaller published compilations, associated with Pelyul, Dzogchen and Nedo, containing texts that are excluded from the larger anthology. However, in our experience, and on the authority of Gene Smith, who generously made the Dudjom manuscript available on CD-ROM, the Dudjom manuscript is far more accurate than the many Indian and Bhutanese reprints that are more widely available and have provided the source for the recent partial translations of The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States. Even the illuminated manuscript on which Kazi Dawa Samdup’s 1927 translation is based appears to perpetuate the same inaccuracies. After wrestling with the scribal errors, lacunae and inconsistencies that fill the various Indian reprints of The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States, it was with considerable joy and relief that we were finally able to clarify obscure readings and eliminate many cumbersome and unnecessary annotations by basing our translation on the three-volume Dudjom edition of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention. Seldom have we opted for readings based on the two Indian reprints of The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States at our disposal, the Delhi and Varanasi photo-offset publications, and when we have done so, we have indicated the reason for our choice in the notes. We have not, however, made reference to the new Amdo edition, compiled by Khenpo Dorje and just published in Hong Kong.
Readers wishing to understand the precise relationship between the chapters of the derivative Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States, and the larger cycle of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, are referred to Appendix One, where the correspondences are presented.
As stated above, this is the first complete English translation of The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States, otherwise known to the outside world as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and it is based on a version of the original text which has proven to be far more accurate than those used in previous translations. All the chapters of the anthology standardised by Nyima Drakpa and later published in woodblock form at Dzogchen Monastery are contained in this book. With the exception of Chapter 13, Part One, which may well derive from the non-extant Lotus Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, and Chapter 13, Part Two, which was composed by Gyarawa Namka Chokyi Gyatso, all the other chapters from Nyima Drakpa’s compilation appear to have been taken from the original treasure-cycle of Karma Lingpa’s Peaceful and Wrathful Deities.
In presenting our translation, we have sought to order the chapters according to the meaningful sequence of the intermediate states that arise in the course of life and death, and therefore the order of the chapters in this translation differs from the arrangement of Nyima Drakpa. In addition, we have included two further chapters from the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities that are not part of The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States. Chapter 1, outlining the preliminary practices of meditation, is attributed to Nyinda Choje and Nyinda Ozer, while Chapter 10, on consciousness transference, derives from Karma Lingpa’s Six Guidebooks of the Perfection Stage of meditation. The first of these has been included because it provides an essential context to the later chapters, and the instructions on consciousness transference have been included because they are specifically mentioned in Chapter 11, as a necessary practice related to the intermediate state of the time of death.
1
Natural Liberation of the Nature of Mind: The Four-session Yoga of the Preliminary Practice
CONTEXT
In its original Tibetan this preliminary practice is beautifully written in verse. In the monasteries and lay households of the practitioners of this cycle of teachings, it is usually sung melodically in the early morning, before any other practice or activity is begun. Often the young monks sing the opening verses of this poem as they go about their morning duties.
When engaging in a preliminary retreat, it is recommended that this meditation is done every day in four sessions: early morning till dawn, after sunrise until just before noon, from afternoon until just before sunset, and from sunset until late evening.
The practice essentialises the ‘four common or outer preliminaries’ and the ‘five uncommon or inner preliminaries’, which are described in the glossary. It is recommended that the inner preliminary practices are repeated 100,000 times as a prerequisite to receiving instruction on the ‘generation stage’ practices of the Vehicle of Indestructible Reality (Vajrayāna).
Herein is contained the Natural Liberation of the Nature of Mind: The Four-session Yoga which is a Spiritual Practice of the Vehicle of Indestructible Reality, the Way of Secret Mantras,1 an extract from the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: A Profound Sacred Teaching, [entitled] Natural Liberation through [Recognition of] Enlightened Intention.2
It would be excellent if one were to train one’s mental continuum according to the [following] preliminary practices which are based on the Peace ful and Wrathful Deities: A Profound Sacred Teaching, [entitled] Natural Liberation through [Recognition of] Enlightened Intention.
COMMON PRELIMINARY PRACTICE
O, Alas! Alas! Fortunate Child of Buddha Nature,
Do not be oppressed by the forces of ignorance and delusion!
But rise up now with resolve and courage!
Entranced by ignorance, from beginningless time until now,
You have had [more than] enough time to sleep.
So do not slumber any longer, but strive after virtue with body, speech and mind!
Are you oblivious to the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death?
There is no guarantee that you will survive, even past this very day!
The time has come [for you] to develop perseverance in [your] practice.
For, at this singular opportunity, you could attain the everlasting bliss [of nirvāṇa].
So now is [certainly] not the time to sit idly,
But, starting with [the reflection on] death, you should bring your practice to completion!3
The moments of our life are not expendable,
And the [possible] circumstances of death are beyond imagination.
If you do not achieve an undaunted confident security now,
What point is there in your being alive, O living creature?
All phenomena are [ultimately] selfless, empty, and free from conceptual elaboration.
In their dynamic they resemble an illusion, mirage, dream, or reflected image,
A celestial city, an echo, a reflection of the moon in water, a bubble, an optical illusion, or an intangible emanation.
You should know that all things of cyclic existence and nirvāṇa
Accord [in nature] with these ten similes of illusory phenomena.
All phenomena are naturally uncreated.
They neither abide nor cease, neither come nor go.
They are without objective referent, signless, ineffable, and free from thought.4
The time has come for this truth to be realised!
Homage to the spiritual teachers!
Homage to the meditational deities!
Homage to the ḍākinῑs!
O, Alas! Alas! How needing of compassion are those living beings, tortured by their past actions,
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br /> [Who are drowning] in this deep chasm, the engulfing ocean of their past actions!
Such is the nature of fluctuating cyclic existence!
Grant your blessing, so that this ocean of sufferings may run dry!
How needing of compassion are those who are skill-less,5
Those who are tortured by ignorance and past actions,
Those who indulge in actions conducive to suffering —
Even though they desire happiness!
Grant your blessing, so that the obscuration of dissonant mental states and past actions may be purified!
How needing of compassion are the ignorant and the deluded,
[Bound] in this confining dungeon of egotistical attachment and the subject-object dichotomy,
Who, like wild game, are trapped in this snare, time after time!
Grant your blessing, so that cyclic existence may be stirred to its depths!
How needing of compassion are those beings who endlessly revolve [in the cycle of existence],
As if [circling] perpetually [on] the rim of a water-wheel,
In this six-dimensional city of imprisoning past actions!
Grant your blessing, so that the womb entrances to the six classes of existence may be barred!
We who are fearless and hard-hearted, despite having seen so many sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death,
Are wasting our human lives, endowed with freedom and opportunity,6 on the paths of distraction.
Grant your blessing, so that we may [continuously] remember impermanence and death!
Since we do not recognise that impermanent [things] are unreliable,
Still, even now, we remain attached, clinging to this cycle of existence.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead Page 5