The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels, Chapter 5: Beyond Pushing and Striving, Cause and Result

The Realm of Dharmas,

a Treasury of Jewels,

by Longchen Rabjampa

CHAPTER FIVE

BEYOND PUSHING AND STRIVING, CAUSE AND RESULT

In the Mind Proper,  Bodhicitta’s substance,  is

no philosophy to ponder,no practice to practice on,

no goal to try for,no Path stages to go down,

no mandala or generation stage,no mantra recitation or completion stage,

no initiations,no vows to keep,

In the Dharma Proper of totally naturally-arrived-at purity,

is a transcendence beyond those incidental dharmas

of pushing through stages,

of cause and result.

˚

[An uncompromising metaphor showing how the same is devoid of working and pushing, accepting and rejecting.]

This is the substance of Bodhicitta:

A     sun unobscured by darkness and clouds     that

is clear in itself of incidentals  in the unmade Realm.

[The solar substance is by nature Sheer Luminosity in the sky-realm.  It isn’t in its substance obscured by clouds.  The incidence of cause and effect does nothing to its sheer luminosity.  Likewise, the implicit substance of Awareness is unaffected when there are obscurations or causes and effects.  When people on the four continents look, some will see obscurations and think the sun is obscured when it is just the appearance of a cloud in front of their own eyes.  Holding on to the thought, “The sun is obscured,” is what we call ERROR.]

˚

The ten teachings of pushing and striving

were taught for those temporarily in error

with regard to the special powers.

The methods of penetration by stages

according to grades of exertion

are, in the case of the Vajra Heart Ati-yoga,

not taught to those who have at all

joined the Real.

˚

[The division into nine Vehicles is explained together with their underlying purposes.  The first six Vehicles:]

These are for people who have the drive for gradual penetration,

in order to lead them to the Realm,  the primordial Dharma Proper.

The Vehicles of Hearers,

Solitary Realizers &

Bodhisattvas

are grades of teachings for the three lesser types.

The three, Kriya,

Upa &

Yoga

are by nature arrived-at for the three middling types.

˚

[The stages of the three Inner Yoga Vehicles are these:]

Maha,

Anu &

Ati.     These three

appeared from the very beginning to the three superior types.

When the doors of the teachings of Cause Vehicles (of sutra) &

Result Vehicles (of tantra) are opened,

fortunate ones are drawn into the clarity,

comprehension &

citta (the three components of

Bodhicitta).

˚

[It is taught that all serve as entrance doors to Vajra Heart.]

All Vehicles serve the purpose of the Vajra Heart actualized.

Because they must enter into this amazing

great secret,

it is called the Vehicle of the truly clearly comprehended

heart,

the summit of all, the supreme and unchanging

Sheer Luminosity.

[All those Vehicles must enter into this Vehicle of Vajra Heart actualized, because where this door is not to be seen, the attainment of Buddhahood doesn’t happen.]

˚

[From the standpoint of Ati-yoga, only it is great, while the other eight Vehicles are small.  The eight Vehicles which have stages are like this:]

These teachings, by virtue of their dualistic thinking, have 

pushing and working, accepting/rejecting.

The nature which dawns as play from the special powers

is explained in order to cleanse away the

hidden karmic formations

of citta and its products.

These Vehicles would have it that Full Knowledge is purer than citta.

[Those who follow the eight Vehicles make citta as the Path, and they make it the Path together with pushing and working, accepting/rejecting.  They would have it that citta, when it is devoid of stains, is Full Knowledge.  Like all except the Heartdrop, the heart-of-hearts of Ati, they patch things together in that way.  To citta alone they arrange their altars for the Basis, Path and Result of Bodhi.  The distinction here may be known from my works, The Philosophy Jewel Treasury, The Highest of Vehicles Jewel Treasury, and The Sheer Luminosity Jewel Treasury…  Full Knowledge is the substance of Awareness which is ever devoid of an object, beyond verbalizing and pondering, while citta is knowledge which grasps objects.  But the root of citta touches on Full Knowledge; so, in a hidden way, it is like it is a lustre or special power of Full Knowledge.  When its own substantiality is viewed as Full Knowledge, it must be recognized as such.  We speak of ‘stains’ when it is not recognized as such.  Because there is this distinction between the special powers and the substantiality of Full Knowledge, it must be divided into citta and Full Knowledge.]

˚

[The ninth, the great Vehicle of Ati-yoga.]

The great teaching which is devoid of working/pushing,

accepting/rejecting,

makes plain the self-engendered Full Knowledge

without budging from the straight substantiality

of the clearly comprehended Mind Proper

that self-engendered Full Knowledge is.

So what need to look around?

You don’t look somewhere else for something

that lies within you!

˚

[The difference between the small and great Vehicles.]

It is just as in the case of the solar substance.

When we say that Sheer Luminosity abides within

without moving,

others would clear away the clouds and darkness,

an undertaking which is as if they would

create the primordially existing sun

with their pushing and striving

when the only difference between the two is like

different standing points in space.

[The lower Vehicles want to find Buddhahood through cause and effect, pushing/striving; but in Ati-yoga, the only meaningful question is whether there is or is not, starting from now, and in the Buddhahood as it is, Awareness—the self-engendered Full Knowledge itself.]

˚

[A refutation of the foolish people who do not distinguish the hordes of other-engendered, distracting thoughts from the self-engendered Full Knowledge.]

Nowadays, the elephants who pride themselves

in their Ati-yoga say,

“The hordes of zigzagging, outflowing distracting

thoughts is Bodhicitta.”

These fools are all in the very receptive centre

of darkness,

far from the significance of the Nature Great 

Completion.

They have no call to make pronouncements on

the substantiality of Bodhicitta

when they don’t even know the special powers

or the dawning from the special powers.

[Even while there are some who have a little faith in this Vehicle, the fortune to see it well is like a single hair split into an hundred parts (slim indeed!).  Posturing themselves with the delusion of analyzing nothing, they decorate their faces with the golden nets of their false realization and envy.  With all the grace of an elephant, these people who are full of obsequious praise and pride in their own knowledge are not satisfied to enter into wrong paths, delusions and afflicted mental states by themselves, but whenever they meet people who are aiming for liberation with a small accumulation of merit and whenever they meet people of bad character, they teaching them all in words like these,

“Whatever appears is the nature of Dharmabody.

Distracting thoughts alone are the very

self-engendered Full Knowledge.”

and,

“What seems to be samadhi is the mind in a state of ignorance.”

With other such statements they propound their doctrinal concoctions that lead creatures astray.  I have actually seen those who preach these things as “profound teachings not to be found elsewhere.”]

˚

[‘Well, then.  If we are not to listen to such statements, let alone follow them, what is this self-engendered Full Knowledge?’ one might ask.]

In the ultimate truth,  the Dharma Proper of the Realm,

the primordially pure Bodhicitta,

is beyond thought and speech,

Insight-gone-to-the-other-shore.

Naturally unmoving, its nature is Sheer Luminosity.

It is totally devoid of the diffusive influences of

zigzagging and outflowing thoughts.

To speak of its substantiality, it is like the solar essence.

Its special power is a passing-right-through Awareness

which dawns unobstructedly,

without deliberation or research.

It clarifies itself with its own clarity;

there is no subjective/objective.

[The self-engendered Full Knowledge is undiffusive void-clarity Awareness.  Just like in a pure crystal ball, things that are not deliberated on as external objects just come up, and that’s that.]

˚

The awareness that dawns from the special powers is diffusive thought.

Subject/object dichotomies with their many hidden karmic formations

are produced by it.

The five sense sphere which are non-sense spheres

taken to be sense spheres,

the five afflictive emotions which are non-self

taken to be self

and however many other appearances of inner/outer,

material/vital there may be—

Even what appears as sangsara has dawned from the special powers.

They are just appearances

mis under stood and wrongly taken.

˚

The authoritative statement on the naturally-arrived-at Vajra Heart

Ati-yoga teachings goes like this:

Being understood as the great receptive centre of Dharma Proper

that hasn’t come from anywhere, hasn’t gone to anywhere

and doesn’t keep itself anywhere,

the three realms are totally liberated in the underlying significance.

They dawn from the receptive centre of the great spacious total good.

˚

[The substance of Awareness is sky-like, beyond the perceptual fields.]

In the substance of immaculate Bodhicitta

are no perceptual fields of vision, no dharmas of vision,

not the least iota of seeables and seers;

no thought of meditation, no meditatable dharma.

Nothing practiced, no practitioner, it is naturally-arrived-at.

So there is not one iota of a goal to be pursued.

[When view, meditation, practice or goal are put on top of Awareness, the same Awareness, as of the time they are put there, has no substance at all.  This is not to be done.]

˚

[It is in this way that “no cultivation on (Bodhisattva) Levels” and other such statements are to be understood.]

There are no Levels to go through toward a Dharma

which isn’t.

So there is absolutely no Path to go down.

When established in the Great Sheer Luminosity Drop,

there are no distracting thoughts, no expansion (no analysis),

no generated mandala,               no contraction (no synthesis),

no mantra,               no mantra recitation,

no initiation,        no sacred commitments.

There is not the least idea of ‘gradual integration’, etc.,

no completion stage.

In the totally established Body and Full Knowledge

there are no compounded things,          no sudden accidents,

no cause/effect.

Where they are, there is no self-engendered Full Knowledge.

Where there are compounds, there is dissolution.

So what’s to explain about this naturally-arrived-at non-compound?

[All these practices, stages, vows, etc., imply putting things together and arriving-at aims in an un-natural way.  To say that they are necessary for attaining the naturally-arrived-at non-compound is a contradiction in terms.]

˚

[Now the meaning of the preceding verses is distilled in “Beyond pushing and striving, cause/effect.”]

Therefore, in the ultimate significance, there is

in the Realm no

cause/effect, no ten different natures, no pushing/striving.

I beg you to understand

that the real Mind Proper means

to be at peace from

all this diffusiveness

of is and is not.

Start at Chapter One. 

Go to Chapter Six.