Old Man Basking in the Sun
(Excerpts)
Longchenpa's Treasury of Natural
Perfection
| HOME |
BOOKS | BOOKSTORE |
| DZOGCHEN |
|
|
Old Man Basking in the Sun |
|
|
 |
Old Man Basking in the Sun, Longchen Rabjampa's
Treasury of Natural Perfection (Gnas lugs mdzod), translation & commentary
by Keith Dowman; forward by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu; cover by Nicholas Liber;
published by Vajra Publications, Kathmandu, Nepal (www.vajrabooks.com.np);
2006; softback 303 pages.
Publisher's
Announcement |
Contents of "Old Man"
Foreword by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Translator's Introduction
Treasury of Natural Perfection: Root Verses
Commentary to the Treasury of Natural Perfection
Prologue: cantos 1-2
The Concise Exposition: canto 3
The Extensive Exposition: cantos 4-115
1. The First Theme: Absence
2. The Second Theme: Openness
3. The Third Theme: Spontaneity
4. The Fourth Theme: Unity
5. The Fifth Theme: Advice to Recipients
The Recipients
Unacceptable Candidates (cantos 116-7)
Acceptable Candidates (cantos 118-9)
The Teacher (cantos 120-1)
The Essential Precepts (canto 122)
i. The View
ii. Surrender to the Gnostic Dynamic
iii. Recipients: Caste and Color
Obligations of the Recipients (canto 123)
The Conclusion of the Treatise
Dedication (canto 124-5)
Colophon (canto 126)
Benediction and Verses of Inspiration (canto 127)
Notes and Appendices
Endnotes
Appendix I: The Tibetan Text and Quotations
Appendix II: List of Similes
Appendix III: List of Headings
A Dzogchen Glossary
Bibliography
Excerpts from the Translator's Introduction
Tangentially, the message of Dzogchen provides a functional approach to the medical ills of age, a redemptive approach to sexuality and a positive, joyful vision of death and dying. These popular effects of Dzogchen, however, should not obscure its fundamental purpose - to recognize the unity of all things in as non dual universe of full awareness, harmony and compassion. (p. xiii)
The vision of Dzogchen is innate in any soteriological culture, or indeed in any human society. If a perfect nondual state of being is indeed the inescapable intrinsic state of all our being, as Longchenpa, the author of The Treasury of Natural Perfection, intimates, then we should expect to see traces of the idea around the world in poetry and historical religious literature, which surely is the case. (p. xv)
'Liberation', synonymous with happiness, whatever the method, is thus the purpose of life. Dzogchen assumes a stance not only outside and beyond the innumerable schools of Buddhism and Hinduism that provide methods of attaining that release, but by default beyond all religious systems whatsoever, including the Judeo-Christian and Muslim, and all secular systems of belief including nihilist, atheist, hedonist and humanist. (p xvii)
The innate awareness of this pristine nondual brilliance is called rigpa, which herein is translated as 'gnosis'. (p. xviii)
Dzogchen 'nonmeditation' is a spontaneous noncontingent continuity - a timeless synchronicitous awareness. (p. xvii)
...first is the mind's spontaneous function of disengagement from sensory and mental objects of attachment and simultaneous self-identity with the light of which they are made. This is called Breaking Through, or Cutting Through (trekcho), into the original purity - or alpha-purity - where natural perfection lies. In the spacious luminosity of alpha-purity there may still be a gap between the mind of the hyper-yogin with its all-suffusing light and this last vestige of self-consciousness, and this is eliminated by the natural flow of nonmeditation upon the brilliance of the light through its apparent nuclear components known as 'holistic nuclei' which may be compared to the pixels of light in a hologram. This phase of hyper-yoga is called Jumping Through (togel) and implies entry into the state of spontaneity that belies causality. (p. xix)
Dzogchen provides a deconstructive view that allows automatic access to the spaciousness of the intrinsic complete and perfect reality that is the nature of mind. This lurch from a reliance upon the rational mind to an existential understanding of reality occurs in the light of deep initiatory experience, which is known technically as an introduction to the nature of mind. (..) The intellect is redundant in the momentary insight into every experience of the flow of experience as compassionate emptiness and light. (p.xx)
Initiatory experience is present in this very moment and nothing can be done to facilitate its event. (p. xx)
Recognition of our lived experience, just as it is, in its miraculous immediacy and beauty, without any yen for change, is the practice of radical Dzogchen, and belief in personal development and improvement, progress towards a social ideal, moral evolution of the species, and so on, is deviation from the pure pleasure of the unthought timeless moment. (p. xxi)The here-and-now is the receptacle of the nondual reality that is the matrix of mind where gnosis inevitably fires in the very moment of every experience. If this matrix of intrinsic gnosis sounds like God to some people, then they are definitely on the right track. (...) If we look closely, it appears that this 'God' has no kind of existence or definable attributes whatsoever and can only be spoken of - if at all – in terms of gnosis, luminosity, emptiness and nonduality. (...) 'Buddha' is primordial cognitive awakening that happens only in a moment of experience of here-and-now and, therefore, can never be distanced and objectified. It is an egregious mistake to understand 'buddha' or 'the nature of mind' as something infinitely subtle yet indicative of a state that may be attested or attained. (p. xxii)
To the top end of recipients of the Dzogchen transmission, merely by its assimilation, an immediate dissolution of of samsaric dichotomy is assured, and whatever validity such a promise entails it indicates the nature of the transmission and the Dzogchen dialetic as a functional tool. (...) Far from being an objective philosophical description of the world at large, or a soteriological blueprint, this exposition is a magical psychotropic poem. (p. xxii)
In the mind of natural perfection, certainly, moral discrimination and moral causality do not exist, yet what remains in nondual 'bodhichitta', both the ground and the emanation of pure mind, which can only ever be pure vision and perfect conduct. What begins as pure mind exists and ends as pure mind. Here, bodhicitta, which in Dzogchen means the pure Gnostic mind of nondual perception, reaffirms its Mahayana definition of compassion. Here and now compassion is all. (...) In Dzogchen, 'taking the position of consequence' (...) there is no fall from grace, and there never has been a fall, and in the realization of that reality where the golden age lies just beneath an insubstantial, fragile surface of dualistic belief, any moral dualism becomes a problem rather than the solution. (p. xxv)
So stay here, you lucky people,
Let go and be happy in the natural state.
Let your complicated life and everyday confusion alone
And out of quietude, doing nothing, watch the nature of mind.
This piece of advice is from the bottom of my heart:
Fully engage in contemplation and understanding is born;
Cherish non-attachment and delusion dissolves;
And forming no agenda at all reality dawns.
Whatever occurs, whatever it may be, that itself is the key,
And without stopping it or nourishing it, in an even flow,
Freely resting, surrendering to ultimate contemplation,
In naked pristine purity we reach consummation. (p. xxvii)The body of the text comprises four themes - absence, openness, spontaneity and unity - all of equal weight, each providing a complete description of, and by default, access to, buddhahood. The four themes are the samaya-commitments of Dzogchen, aspects of reality that are intrinsic to our everyday experience and which are naturally observed through our participation in being. (p. xxix)
The Prologue, Concise Exposition and Excerpts
from the Disclosure of Absence
The head verse of each canto is a root verse; the subsequent prose is Longchenpa's commentary with illustrative verse quotes; and the prose in lower point type is the translator's commentary.Homage to Glorious Samantabhadra, the All-Good!
To the matrix of primordial, spontaneous perfection,
to the original lord, the glory of samsara and nirvana,
and to the masters and magi, mystics and lamas,
we bow down with a thousand shimmering petals of lotus-faith.
I shall now elucidate The Treasury of Natural Perfection,
the quintessential truth, the final, definitive teaching,
distilled from the enigmatic heart-drop of direct experience,
the apogee of attainment that is existential pre-eminence.
The glorious Samantabhadra, manifestly and totally present in the fundamental ground of the here-and-now, abiding in the immutable vajra-space that is hyper-sameness, turns the wheel of unsurpassable, definitive revelation. The sublime fruition is the profound mystery of natural perfection. This is the indisputable and unchanging reality of pure gnostic mind and pure being revealed directly and effortlessly, ineluctably present in the moment. This treatise of secret instruction called The Treasury of Natural Perfection is a summation of the incontrovertible truths of natural perfection.
1. Vajra-Homage
To timeless buddhahood, basic total presence,
to unchanging spontaneity, the spacious vajra-heart,
to the nature of mind—natural perfection,
constantly, simply being, we bow down.
This verse of homage evokes the essential immutable spaciousness, the vajra-space, of this treatise. This spaciousness is the essence of self-sprung awareness, the ground of the spontaneity - the perfection and creativity - of pure and total presence. It is the unchanging field of reality, clear light as the nature of mind, the original face of natural perfection.
'Vajra' homage is rendered in and to that unchanging space without any attempt to alter anything, without focusing on anything, and without stirring from the disposition of pure being. Natural perfection is the self-sprung awareness that precludes any specific bias or partiality, rendering any training or endeavor redundant.
Ho! The atiyoga of natural perfection! Dzogchen Ati!
The Great Perfection, in its unbiased inclusivity,
actualizes the meaning of self-sprung awareness;
as the lion overawes all other beasts with his roar,
so the language of Great Perfection commands the gradual approaches;
speaking a tongue of its own, it engenders its own ultimate meaning.
The land of natural perfection is free of buddhas and sentient beings;
the ground of natural perfection is free of good and bad;
the path of natural perfection has no length;
the fruition of natural perfection can neither be avoided nor attained;
the body of natural perfection is neither existent nor nonexistent;
the speech of natural perfection is neither sacred nor profane;
and the mind of natural perfection has no substance nor attribute.
The space of natural perfection cannot be consumed nor voided;
the status of natural perfection is neither high nor low;
the praxis of natural perfection is neither developed nor neglected;
the potency of natural perfection is neither fulfilled nor frustrated;
the display of natural perfection is neither manifest nor latent;
the actuality of natural perfection is neither cultivated nor ignored;
and the gnosis of natural perfection is neither visible nor invisible.
The hidden awareness of natural perfection is everywhere,
its parameters beyond indication,
its actuality incommunicable;
the sovereign view of natural perfection is the here-and-now,
naturally present without speech or books,
irrespective of conceptual clarity or dullness,
but as spontaneous joyful creativity
its reality is nothing at all.
In the verse of homage, the first, second and third lines reveal the self-sprung natural essence while the fourth line shows familiarity with that unchanging space of reality. The fruition of natural perfection is distinguished from our ordinary disposition by nothing more than an indication about the existential ground (the starting point that is 'basic total presence' adduced in the first line of the vajra-homage). All experience, therefore, is revealed as perfect and complete in the gnosis of pure mind.
There is no imperfection anywhere:
perfect in one, perfect in two, perfect in all,
life is blissfully easy.
Unity is perfect as unitary pure mind,
duality is perfect as the mind's creation,
and multiplicity is abundant completion.
In the transmission of the perfection of unity
lies the pure buddha-dynamic;
the teaching on the perfection of duality
reveals everything as perfect projection;
and by virtue of the perfection of multiplicity
everything turns whole and splendid.
Abiding here, doing nothing,
embodied as man or god,
our dynamic is buddha-reality;
here sentient beings are cared for,
and without any exertion we live in ease.
So homage is given to the nature of mind itself, self-sprung awareness, the projective base of samsara and nirvana:
Homage to the sole nature of mind, the seed of all and everything,
to the mind that creates the sense of existence and release from it,
to the mind that fulfils all our desires like a wish-fulfilling gem!
The act of vajra-homage, a ritual verbal gesture, is recognition of the primordial perfection of the nature of mind. The language of the Great Perfection is the natural expression of gnosis, empty and joyful, that establishes its own nonreferential reality. Inducing self-sprung awareness, the totality of experience, its language evokes a timeless reality beyond linguistic - and also social and moral - conditioning.
The famous line 'perfect in one, perfect in two, perfect in all' could be rendered 'unity is perfect, duality is perfect, plurality is perfect' - everything is necessarily perfect. The 'perfection' of Dzogchen carries with it the notion of completion. The final verse of that quotation is an introduction to the notion of nonaction, that nothing at all need be done to attain natural perfection since everything is perfect as it is. Yet, transmission is required - one pure mind accomplishes all:
2. The Promise to Compose
This unutterable space that is the nature of things
the apogee of view that is natural perfection -
listen as I explain my understanding
of this sole immanent reality.
The matrix of inconceivable and ineffable reality is pure gnostic mind, which is natural perfection. It is unique and beyond illustration in that it is without any substance or attributes, marks or signs. I have understood it well enough through the grace of the true guru, and here in this treatise, I promise to reveal it for the sake of future generations.
By revealing here what is not realized in the gradual, progressive approaches to buddhahood, namely that the nature of mind cannot be intuited on a causal path of endeavor, the understanding that everything is nominal illusion is taught, and that glitches and veils, pure in their evanescence, are not to be rejected.
The super-matrix of nonaction, unbegun and unending
like the Golden Isle, is all-inclusive and undifferentiated,
and without outside or inside, the sun of pure mind
ever dawning, never setting, dispels the shadows of polarity.
Pure mind does not spurn the four extreme beliefs
but it is unaffected by them, and glitches are in effect eliminated.
In the pure nature of mind, uncleft, where no abyss can be,
the three gnostic dimensions are spontaneously complete and perfect,
samsara and nirvana mere labels imputed by conditioning.
My primary intention in composing this treatise elucidating Garab Dorje's meaning is to benefit those most keen minds that are able to gain instantaneous release into reality just as it is by listening to these words or by reading them. In order to fulfil this undertaking I shall teach the four themes of the Great Perfection definitively and conclusively.
He who loves others and serves them
does not slacken his effort when his life is endangered;
the fearless sage with true sense of responsibility
never forsakes others' desperation.
The following four factors will further clarify my intent: firstly, the subject matter of the work is pure gnostic mind, beyond causality, inconceivable and ineffable; secondly, the primary purpose of the work is to induce the brightest minds to intuit the reality of pure gnostic mind; thirdly, the secondary purpose of the work is to induce people to familiarize themselves with this intuition and arrive at the natural state of mind; and the fourth factor is the synchronicitous conjunction of the three preceding aspects.
That given, everything lying within the scope of gnosis, by realization of this gnosis that lies beyond both causality and directed effort, all progressive approaches are superseded:
I am pure mind, the supreme source:
realize my nature
and all events that occur, whatever they may be,
shall be revealed as nothing other than me.
If you give this transmission of mine to others,
your entire audience gathered around
will realize my nature,
the nature of the supreme source,
and they will become one with me.
Then whatever happens, whatever appears,
relinquish the dualistic discipline of rejection and inhibition,
forsake the grace of the three types of ritual purity,
and no longer strive to develop samadhi and a compassionate mind.
Since everyone is created in me, the supreme source,
everything and everyone is the same as me;
I am sameness, so I need not promote sameness.
I reiterate: identity with me need not be cultivated!
So to what purpose is this understanding?
To reveal the purpose and necessity:
Innumerable aeons ago
some ati-yogins with good fortune and karmic connection,
with faith in me, the supreme source, and in my total presence,
perceived that there was no view to cultivate, no commitment to keep,
no ideal conduct to strive in, no path to tread,
no climbing spiritual levels, no karmic cause and effect,
no duality of ultimate and relative truth,
and nothing to cultivate in meditation,
and seeing that there was no mind to develop and no remedy
they saw the nature of my mind:
this revelation is necessary for those like them!
The 'matrix' is the here-and-now. Nothing can ever escape it; it is all-embracing. It is the unitary wholeness of pure mind; it is a nondual totality. It may be called 'the vajra-space of reality', or simply 'the vast expanse'. It is ultimate intimacy. As the source of all experience, and thus language, it is a field of mystery. See canto 126.
The three gnostic dimensions are the three buddha-bodies, that may be imaged as interpenetrating spheres. They are, of course, one in reality (see cantos 69 and 70). But as a primary conceptual aid they provide both the method of release for body, speech and mind and a key to altruistic pure pleasure in the dimensions of emptiness as essence, radiance as nature, and indeterminate emanation as compassion.
The four extreme beliefs are the rigid attitudes about reality arising from belief in existence, nonexistence, both or neither (see cantos 36 and 37).
The supreme source is the original, all-inclusive adibuddha, Samantabhadra (Tibetan: Kuntuzangpo), known by that name particularly in the great root tantra of the Mind Series precepts, The Supreme Source. In an uncompromising statement of radical Dzogchen, to forsake the gradualist approaches with their heavy baggage that precludes an open mind is a condition sine qua non of receiving the transmission of Samantabhadra.
Here at the outset I have told you the reason for writing this treatise; now I shall continue with a concise exposition of its substance.
The Concise Exposition
3. The Short Exposition of the Four Ineluctable Vajra-Binds
The conclusive meaning of Mind, Matrix and Secret Precept
lies in absence, openness, spontaneity and unity.
These four are treated each in four aspects:
disclosure, assimilation, 'the bind' and resolution.
The entire teaching is contained in the elucidation of the ultimately significant four hyper-commitments of natural perfection, to wit the samaya of the intrinsic absence of all experience, the samaya of primordial spontaneity, the samaya of impartial and unrestricted openness and the samaya of the integral unity of self-sprung awareness.
The entire corpus of Dzogchen scripture, the tantras of the Great Perfection, including the aphorisms of Garab Dorje, are classified according to Manjusrimitra's categorization as Mind, Matrix or Secret Precept Series. Mind and Secret Precept, but no Matrix Series tantras, are quoted herein, no categorical distinction made between them. The four hyper-commitments, the four samayas, the 'four ineluctable vajra-binds or themes' - absence, openness, spontaneity and unity - reveal the timeless meaning of all three series.
The natural samayas of wondrous spontaneity,
absence, unity and openness,
all of which are beyond any observance,
all are aspects of each other.
My hidden samaya is intrinsic gnostic awareness
where the commitment and the observance are the same
and where the keeping and the breaking are the same,
and therein are the four commitments that need no heeding,
confidently observed, inviolable, from the first:
the contrived commitments of the eight lower approaches,
I deny, and I call that 'absence';
liberated from lesser obligations, uncommitted,
the media of awareness—body, speech and mind,
are vastly spacious and I call that 'openness';
the way of keeping an inviolable commitment,
a pledge that cannot be observed,
is through holistic, intrinsic gnostic awareness,
that alone, and I call that 'unity';
that intrinsic gnostic awareness,
maintained effortlessly, doing nothing,
that I call 'spontaneity'.
I, the supreme source, have no samaya commitment to keep,
for in the absence of cause and condition, endeavor is redundant.
I am spontaneity itself, so analysis is futile;
I am timeless awareness, so knowledge is vanity;
I am self-sprung, so causes and conditions are unavailing;
I am undiscriminating, so renunciation and self-discipline are pointless:
I am unreal and 'Absence' is my name.
Never becoming concrete, pristine awareness is never reified,
and thus 'openness' is defined;
all is one in pure mind, and thus 'unity' is defined;
all and everything, whatever happens,
as mental events in pure mind
is always complete and perfect,
and thus 'spontaneity' is defined.
Each of the four samaya commitments is first disclosed here as the heart of immediate reality ('disclosure'); secondly, each is shown to be assimilated to the self-sprung awareness of the actual here-and-now ('assimilation'); thirdly, each is shown to be bound as unoriginated and unintentional ('the bind'); and fourthly, the resolution of each is shown beyond any deliberate, goal-oriented endeavor ('resolution'). Each of the four samaya commitments is thus treated under four headings, and the entire exposition is presented in sixteen sections. That is a concise presentation of the structure of the work.
Understanding the four sections, respectively, as the timeless, natural way of being ('disclosure'), the atiyoga of abiding there ('assimilation'), detached activity therein ('the bind'), and the spontaneity of pure being ('resolution'), what previously has been hidden is revealed as 'the zero experience wherein the individual intellect is superseded and all sense of dualistic unreality is surrendered'.
The four headings under which the four samayas are elucidated should not be understood as the conventional categories of view, meditation, conduct and fruition, although 'disclosure' or the natural way of being as the view, 'assimilation' or the yoga of abiding there as meditation, 'the bind' or careless relaxation as conduct, and 'resolution' as spontaneous fruition, is a tempting analysis. In the 'zero experience', the dualizing intellect desists, and 'no mind!' and simultaneously the mental thrust to image and dualize and so create the phenomenal world is spent (see canto 94). These verses constitute an introduction to the nature of mind:
Rather than time or no time,
measurement of time now redundant,
a single unbroken flow,
without beginning, middle or end,
we call 'hyper-sameness'.
In such sameness appearances are ambiguous
and thoughts are indiscrete and unknowable
and the universal significance of natural perfection
insinuates itself into the poor intellect;
the conceptual process, objectless,
involuntarily stops in its tracks.
Without ever knowing delusion
root ignorance is automatically cut,
eradicated from the first without trying -
but surely we all know that!
All coarse materiality, besides,
evanesces by itself in the moment,
and with no place to go simply vanishes:
in fact, the body has never existed;
there is only gnosis without past or future.
Everything, outside time or even in time,
as unity, duality or multiplicity,
visible, invisible, or evanescent,
invisible but resonating or vibrating,
everything holds its place but transcends it -
surely everyone knows that everything is timeless!
The pathless path
is the path always under our feet
and since that path is always beneath us,
if we miss it, how stupid!
The dynamic of involuntary concentration,
irrespective of meditation, is always present -
but surely we all know that!
Surely we all know that our selves
and the things we want and cling to,
from the very first, in reality,
are all images of intrinsic gnosis.
The five passions, self-imposed shackles,
from the first occur together with gnosis -
surely we all know that!
The four material elements,
earth, water, fire and air,
constitute the body -
surely we can all see that!
The distilled elixir of the most secret instruction
resounds spontaneously in every ear -
surely we can all hear it!
Or don't we have ears to hear?
The tang of natural spaciousness and gnosis
indelibly surrounds us -
surely we can all smell it!
Or are our noses blocked up?
The three elixirs rolled into one secret precept
have always been the flavor of body-mind -
surely we can all taste it!
Or have we lost our tongues?
The phantasmagoria of pure vision
is always with us, day and night,
like a shadow, a part of the body -
or are we shadowless corpses?
Surely we can all feel it!
Happiness, hand in hand with suffering,
inexpressibly, is intrinsically present -
or are our minds too dull to notice?
The build-up of samsaric propensities,
primordially, is the pure dimension of being -
pity him who has not noticed!
In the field of sense organ, object and consciousness
every recollection and apperception, every flicker of the mind,
arises as the dimension of perfect enjoyment -
how can we fail to see it!
All goal-oriented conventional activity
and all chatter, gossip and laughter,
is the dimension of magical emanation -
surely we all know that! Or are we so dull?
Every impulse and stirring of the mind,
seamless, like a flowing stream,
our constant mental enchantment,
is effortless, natural meditation -
surely we can't miss that!
Looking closely at matter and energy,
and at thought, sound and form,
it is all insubstantial projection,
and this view that empties our urban samsara
has always been with us, though unseen -
surely our doors of perception are now open!
In short, all outer and inner experience of samsara and nirvana is decisively and crucially disclosed in the view of natural perfection as an absence, as only the potency, display, and ornamentation of the natural gestalt of self-sprung awareness. All experience is assimilated to the natural disposition of self-sprung awareness by a free and open natural contemplation. Originating spontaneously in self-sprung awareness, whatever happens is caught in the bind of inherently awakened, transparent activity. And since experience is nothing other than self-sprung awareness, fruition is resolution in unitary spontaneity.
In this way, although the four aspects are treated separately, their various meanings are all contained within self-sprung awareness. The meaning of self-sprung awareness itself is established through illustration, definition, and evidence:
To understand my nature with certainty,
take the sky as the illustration,
'unoriginated reality' as the definition,
and the elusive nature of mind as the evidence.
As 'sky-like reality'
it is indicated by the simile of sky or space.
All experience is pure mind,
which is likened to the sky (that same simile):
the nature of pure mind is like the sky.
Pure mind is the spaciousness, the origin, of all experience. Although forms of matter and energy appearing in that space seem to be either samsara or nirvana, they are actually all gnostic vision. Everything appears in pure mind as the work and projection of mind, but pure mind itself is uncreated:
Pure mind, uniquely uncreated, creates all;
everything made has the nature of pure mind
and the unique uncreated cannot be contrived.
Thus all and everything is shown contained within the scope of self-sprung awareness which is the vajra-body.
*********The First Vajra Theme: Absence
'All things material and their qualities are absent'
I.1. The Disclosure of Absence
4. The Absence of All Concrete Reality
First let me tell you about 'absence',
the absence that is essentially emptiness:
in the super-matrix of pure mind that is like space
whatever appears is absent in reality.
Gnosis itself and everything appearing in its scope is utterly empty, lacking any identity, so with all proliferating projection and elaborating concepts undermined nothing ever comes into existence.
In the nirvana of indeterminate gnosis,
there is no proliferation, no substance or attribute.
Despite appearances, form is emptiness and emptiness is form and there is no center inside nor any point of focus outside. The gnostic state is unoriginated and there is no dualistic mind that proliferates ideas and creates an objective universe full of specific things.
The super-matrix of pure mind is the spaciousness of absence, likened to elemental space, in which material phenomena appear as intangible images of light:
5. A Definitive Simile for Absence
In the universal womb that is boundless space
all forms of matter and energy occur as flux of the four elements,
but all are empty forms, absent in reality:
all phenomena, arising in pure mind, are like that.
Though all phenomena of all worlds seem to come into existence and perish in the sphere of elemental space, their appearance has no basis and thus, insubstantial, they are said to be absent. The four elements (earth, water, fire and air) that comprise whatever appears, because they are not composed of discrete particles, never actually come into being and, therefore, never cease to exist. Neither the supported phenomena therefore, nor the space that underlies them are actually established as existent. Likewise, both gnosis and all experience appearing within its scope are absent in reality.
Just as all worlds, inner and outer,
all forms of matter and energy,
the animate and inanimate,
all contained in space, are absent,
so is the vast field, the super-matrix of pure mind,
with its buddhas and sentient beings,
its crucible and contents, environment and life-forms:
in immaculate reality everything is nondual,
free of inflating or deflating conceptual projection.
The hologram is a salient simile for our worlds and galaxies projected into cosmic space. Atoms, elemental components of matter, construed as 'supports' of materiality are said to be 'absent' insofar as their indivisibility precludes their application as building blocks of more complex structures. Once the fundament is discovered to be absent, 'supported' material structures—planets, continents, animate and inanimate, flora and fauna—must also be absent. The absence of the material realm is employed as a simile for the status of all phenomena in the moment. The fundament, 'the support', is the pure space of gnosis, while the 'supported' is all experience appearing in its scope. The ontological status of absent phenomena is nondual, free of all evaluation in terms of existence or nonexistence. This existential indeterminacy is termed 'absence' or 'ineffability'.
Rather than referring to the utter nonexistence of all and everything, absence implies the lack of any exterior or interior identity:
6. Appearances in the Nature of Mind are Inherently Absent
Magical illusion, whatever its form,
lacks substance, empty in nature;
likewise, all experience of the world, arisen in the moment,
unstirring from pure mind, is insubstantial evanescence.
All experience of the world and our outer environment and the beings that partake of its energy, the crucible and its contents, no matter what the form, all is as empty of inherent existence as an hallucination of a world with illusory inhabitants—nothing can move outside the space of pure gnosis.
No experience of the world, inner or outer, no matter or energy,
no event in samsara or nirvana, ever leaves pure mind.
Pure gnosis is our original face of awareness where phenomena appear up-front like empty reflections on the surface of a mirror. Things seem to be there; but actually they are not. Everything is a momentary illusion in the nature of mind; nothing whatsoever stirs from or differs from the nature of mind.
Pure mind is the all-inclusive space-time of the dream—of both samsara and nirvana:
8. The External World is Neither Mind Nor Anything But Mind.
Experience may arise in the mind
but it is neither mind nor anything but mind;
it is a vivid display of absence, like magical illusion,
in the very moment unutterable.
All experience arising in the mind,
at its inception, know it as absence!
12. Gnosis Supersedes Moral Conditioning
The actual essence, pristine gnosis,
cannot be improved upon, so virtue is profitless,
and it cannot be impaired, so vice is harmless;
in its absence of karma there is no ripening of pleasure or pain;
in its absence of judgement, no preference for samsara or nirvana;
in its absence of articulation, it has no dimension;
in its absence of past and future, rebirth is an empty notion:
who is there to transmigrate? and how to wander?
what is karma and how can it mature?
Contemplate the reality that is like the clear sky!
As it is said:
Gaze persistently at actual gnosis
and are there any ten virtues there to practice?
is there any samaya commitment to observe?
any view, meditation, conduct or goal to realize?
is there any maturation, karma or hell?
Pristine gnosis is naked, simple, pure being. How does virtue affect it? Certainly it cannot make it any better. Thus virtue brings no benefit. And vice? Vice does not change it for the worse or distort it and it is therefore harmless. Since the nature of mind is nowhere attested, it has no karma, and there is no possibility of an action ripening as happy or sad, or good or bad. In the absence of linear time there are no past and future lives and there is no karmic cause and effect, so 'samsara', a mere label, is ineffectual.
For those who lack an intuition of the nature of mind, samsara appears in all its dualistic pleasure and pain, but for the gnostic yogin or yogini there is the primal purity of emptiness in which all motivation - all existence - has ceased. Even though samsara and nirvana and virtue and vice appear dream-like in the gnostic scope, they do not cover the face of pure mind, which is thus free of moral conditioning. In the absence of causality there are no past and future lives, birth loses all meaning and the triple world flows in each moment into its alpha-purity. This is called 'emptying the depths of samsara'.
Through the yoga of intuiting gnosis, abiding in the gnostic nature of mind, when the yogin or yogini has become fixated on the nature of mind, no amount of virtue or vice brings the slightest advantage or disadvantage because he or she is integrated with the immediacy of what is. The most excellent hyper-yogin or yogini, therefore, lacks moral discrimination yet always acts harmoniously and appropriately. Recognizing all appearances as perfect images of gnosis there is no escape from pristine awareness.
13. 'There Is Only Ever Nonduality'
Constantly deconstructing, investigating keenly,
not even the slightest substance can be found;
and in the undivided moment of nondual perception
we abide in the natural state of perfection.
Absent when scrutinized, absent when ignored,
not even an iota of solid matter is attested;
so all aspects of experience are always absent -
know it as nothing but magical illusion!
The profound significance of the absence of moral causality and conditioning is the lack of any distinction between past, present and future. Insofar as we may repeatedly seek the inside, outside and middle of gnosis and find no distinction, and insofar as we cannot find an iota or particle of solid matter in the universe, and insofar as we search for a discrete moment of pure gnostic mind and find nothing, and insofar as we fail to separate past, present and future because the past has gone, the future never comes, and the present is lost in between, so far we can find no karma, no process of karmic maturation, and no moral conditioning.
If time and space are absent when scrutinized, then in the same way they are surely absent when they are not under scrutiny, for then the parameters of investigation are absent and the objective field has neither specific nor general characteristics (like shape, color, or moral quality). In the latter case time and space are absent also in the conventional sense, for a babe oblivious to the zing of reality, conditioned to time and space, loses the sense of the existence of an experience once it has vanished. It may seem to him that he has performed a conventional good or bad action, but no process of maturation is experienced because the nature of mind always remains unchanged. In truth, cause and effect cannot be distinguished because there is no change between one moment and the next. Therefore, moral causality is never true for anyone, and particularly not for the yogin or yogini, for whom it does not exist even as a lie—karmic maturation cannot be experienced!
Trust in the absence of causality may unfold through these seven wonderful quintessential principles:
Ho! O Vajra Speech-Essence, listen! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the first principle - that intrinsic gnosis is unborn and undying - there is not the slightest difference between a person who kills millions of sentient beings and one who practices the ten perfections (paramitas).
O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the second principle - that the nature of reality is unstructured - there is not the slightest difference between a person who is always meditating upon emptiness and one who has never even momentarily entertained the idea of emptiness.
O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the third principle - that gnosis is unconditioned - as to the completion of the accumulations of virtue and awareness there is not the slightest difference between a religious person who has performed countless conditional virtues and a psychopathic killer.
O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the fourth principle - that the nature of gnostic awareness is unmoving - as to the vision of the real nature of things there is not the slightest difference between a person whose body and language exhibits all the signs of understanding and one who has never cared even momentarily to listen or study the teaching or to think about it.
O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the fifth principle - that the nature of being is unborn and deathless - as to accessing realization there is not the slightest difference between a person experiencing the torment of hell and one experiencing the bliss of buddha.
O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the sixth principle - the immutability of gnosis - as to intuiting the natural condition there is not the slightest difference between a person who has restrained discriminatory mental functions and one who has a strong fixated ego.
O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the seventh principle - the intrinsicality of pure being - as to potential for fruition there is not the slightest difference between a person who performs all kinds of external offerings, uttering praise and prayers, and one who lives free of all religious activity.
O Vajra Speech! A person who lives by these seven great self-sprung principles gains confidence thereby in effortless realization, conviction in the understanding of appearance as inseparable from the three gnostic dimensions and intuition that he or she is buddha.
We may do extensive research in the laboratories of matter (physics) and mind (meditation), but we cannot produce anything like a smallest unit of measurement, a final particle (quark?) or a measure of mind. Likewise, we cannot measure the past or the future or discover any absolute measure of time. Once ultimate building blocks of both spatial and temporal objects are found absent, there can be no causes and effects anywhere in time, in neither 'mechanical' nor 'moral' causality. In the very act of experimentation however, a timeless moment of nondual perception may be discovered where the natural essence of reality is spontaneously revealed.
The idea of karma is tied up with our conventional notions of time and space, and causality. In our daily life, as we go about our business without giving any philosophical thought to its parameters, we seemingly perform good and bad actions and experience good and bad results or reactions. That perception is due to a mistaken belief in the validity of the content of thought, which is judgmental and discriminatory in its nature. Our tendency to get caught up in discriminatory thought entails separation of time into past and future.
Virtue and vice are just thoughts - they cannot be fixed anywhere in time and space; they are nothing substantial, having neither specific nor general characteristics. And insofar as we believe in duality (due to our moral conditioning), we create a delusory personality in our heads that ought to behave in some specific way to avoid being chastised by society, punished by god, or to avoid karmic retribution. Such imaginary persons, however, never existed, never exist and will never exist in the spaciousness of gnosis, so there is never any karmic fruit to be consumed by anyone. The ordinary imaginary (morally conditioned) person is a victim of his own imagination.
Karma does not even exist on its own low level of existential understanding. It is part of the universal delusion, maya, self-delusion. Not even a crutch, it is always a glitch. Karma is not something to be tolerated provisionally; it is something of the order of the snake that is delusively projected upon the proverbial rope.
Like the entirety of radical Dzogchen, this uncompromising affirmation of the seven principles of the nature of mind is to be taken at face value and understood as a restatement of the natural samaya of absence. Intuiting the timeless moment of absence and awakening from the hallucination of samsara is liberation:
21. Disclosure of Absence: the Trailer
Without outside and inside, subject and object,
intrinsic gnosis, being out of time and space,
supersedes all finite events that seemingly begin and end;
pure like the sky, it is without signposts or means of access.
Any specific insight into gnosis is always deluded,
so that any spiritual identity, always delusive, is abandoned;
and convinced that the space of undifferentiated Samantabhadra
is the all-encompassing super-emptiness of all samsara and nirvana,
the natural state obtains as the reality without transition or change.
Breaking out of the brittle shell of discursive view
into the hyperspaciousness that is nowhere located
in the experience of absence the crux of the matter is fully disclosed.
Thus it is determined that every dualistically-perceived experience of the environment and life, samsara and nirvana, inner and outer, however substantial it may appear, in the moment is an image of absence, a pure form of emptiness in unconditioned sky-like gnosis. In as much as it appears, it is empty light; the appearance of empty gnosis, which is the empty brilliance of the luminous self-expression of self-sprung awareness, is revealed here crucially as baseless, rootless, vivid shine.
In my emptiness, there is no structured field,
and my radiance cannot be asserted or negated;
my presence of mind is infallibly retentive,
my appearances a process of direct perception;
I cannot be evoked by verbal elaboration,
and engendered by mantra, I am already perfect;
I am completely free of any cause or condition,
and free of dogmatic and experiential distortions
I am nonreferential, zero-dimensional.
I have no representation or symbolic object,
no visualization, nor mantra,
no dogma, beyond all designation,
and I have neither friends nor foes.
Imperceptible, I have no body,
no religion, no doctrine;
no one is here, no one to perceive:
I do not exist and nor does my retinue.
No spaciousness, no gnostic dimension,
no virtue, no ripening of sin;
no life and nothing to lose,
no accumulation and nothing to gather.
Here is no buddha nor sentient being,
no place to stay nor even emptiness itself;
no method to teach, nor anyone to hear,
no space, no time,
nor any timeless moment.
Therefore, I am nothing at all,
undivided and indivisible,
my scope beyond gradation,
the conception and the act identical,
and in the identity of past, present and future,
there is no field nor its ineffable ground.
The section on the disclosure of all experience as absence is here concluded.
BACK TO TOP