The Realm of Dharmas,
a Treasury of Jewels |
by Longchen Rabjampa
CHAPTER EIGHT
[To show such a pure nature naturally-arrived-at to be of a nondual character, an illustration of how it has dawned from a single Realm, has dawned on its own and so is, in its appropriate substance, nondual.]
Everything is, in the single Realm (the self-engendered Full Knowledge),
nondual in a substantial way.
Dualistic appearances, unimpeded, have dawned as play from its
special powers.
No duality of so-called ‘appearance’ is what we call Bodhicitta.
[Just as no matter what reflections appear on the surface of a single mirror, they are nondual with respect to the mirror, even so, since all dharmas have dawned in the Awareness continuity, they are nondual with respect to Awareness. Just as the several dreams which HAVE dawned during a single period of sleep do not exist apart from the period of sleep, even so, sangsara/nirvana does not exist apart from the role-playing of Awareness. Just as all the waves, big or small, do not exist apart from the water since they have emerged from [and plunge back into] the continuity of a single river, just so all dharmas appear to emerge from the continuity of the not-at-all-existing even while it is clear it doesn’t exist. Aside from the mere appearance, there is no duality between Awareness (which is the void nature Dharma Proper) and the voidness of dharmas.]
˚
[All the dharmas which have dawned from the self-engendered Full Knowledge are situated in the unpreferential Great Levelness. But to the yoga practitioner, they do not exist. They are seen as void forms which appear clearly. This is a song of praise to Realized ones when (void forms) have dawned as appearance:]
discarding/
Appearance/becoming and sangsara/nirvana have dawned without obtaining
on clearly comprehended Awareness beyond transforming/transporting.
The face of the yoga practitioner beyond subject/object dichotomies
breaks out in startled laughter at
these appearances in the nonexistent.
[Those who are conversant with the magic business understand magic to be appearances in the nonexistent. To those with thoughts wanting to believe, the magic appears in the void-like. At those thoughts [the magicians] look on in laughter. In the unarrived-atness of accepting-rejecting good/bad, appearances have dawned unimpededly. Just so, all dharmas of sangsara/nirvana are known as the play of appearances in the nonexistent.]
˚
[There is no Dharmabody from the exact time of the appearances and, when nonexistence has dawned, the appearance of nonexistence is shown to be a mere reflected image of the Void.]
In the nothing-to-appear, the various things
dawn as appearances.
In the nothing-to-be-void, the centre/circumference
spreads out pervasively.
In the subject/object-less, ‘I’ and ‘self’
strive for distinction.
In the rootless & foundationless, rebirths appear
in chains (like mountains).
In the unpreventable & unstrivable, comfortable/uncomfortable
& accepting/rejecting deeds get acted out.
[When you reflect on the meaning of ‘Dharma Proper’, the dharma-having appearances are just a miraculous dawning.]
˚
[Now, what is not produced from inner or external dharmas is sky-like pure. Of the two distinct manners of understanding, the first: The appearances in the external objective realm are established as void forms, foundationless illusions.]
When you look outward, you are amazed at appearances of production & animation.
You wanted the untrue to be true, so it seems to be really true.
You wanted the unerred to be error, so it seems to be truly in error.
You took uncertainty for certainty, so it seems to be actually certain.
You took is/isn’t to be, so it seems to really be.
You took the disagreeable for agreeable, so it seems to be truly agreeable.
[In this way, the unsophisticated who are not familiar with Suchness attach their meanings to “appropriate names” in the nature of external appearances which are, substantially, merely illusory appropriate Void forms.]
˚
[So they grasp to external and internal dharmas like this: They grasp the untrue as true, the unerred as error, the uncertain as certain, that which is beyond is/isn’t as being. Because they grasp the disagreeable as agreeable…]
When various trivial objects entice your attention
you join meaningless momentary awarenesses in a chain
and thus days, months, years and lifetimes pass by.
Because the nondual is nondual, animate beings have been tricked.
[Time passes because when momentary knowledges have not recognized their appropriate substance, they form a flow of erroneous graspings. Error enters in shortly after several momentary (knowledges) and moments into days, days into months, months into years they have error.]
[Habituated to externals, the error of beings is like this: The foundationless Awareness is situated in the sky-like pure Dharmabody. There are merely temporary accidents so long as this is not recognized.
The Pearl Strand says,
The sky-like Dharmabody
the temporary clouds of distraction obscure.
Even the errorless Dharma Proper
appears to thoughts as if in error,
Whatever has cause and conditioning is momentary.]
˚
[When there is sky-like Dharma Proper with no graspable objects because the external sphere is understood to be lacking, the internal grasping subject is established to be foundationless and unsupported.]
When you look back in on the pure joined-to-the-real mind,
Awareness foundationless and unsupported
(wordless, yet talked about;
unseen, yet meditated on and philosophized about),
and thoughts break out in an unbroken queue,
you have not experienced the vast spread-out-to-the-limit buoy floating freely.
It needs no retreat place.
It is utterly free-ranging,
utterly u-n-c-o-n-t-a-i-n-a-b-l-e.
[When you look at the mind, its substance is beyond recognition. Awakening into the foundationless sky nature is the Dharma Proper of self-pure mindfulness, the Dharmabody beyond existence/nonexistence.]
˚
[Awareness where subjective and objective have been realized to be nondual is nonpreferential Great Naturally-arrived-at. It is like this:]
When the vast sky receptive centre is levelly spread-out-to-the-limit
without being handed over to the physical body or objects or appearances,
the so-called “internal dharmas” are not held to constitute a “self”.
[Even though we have this technical term “Self-engendered Full Knowledge” for the substantiality of this Awareness where the absolute absence of subjective and objective has been realized, we are not asserting, like the Mind Only School, that “Self-awareness is self-illumined.” There is no external/internal, so it is not arrived-at in the internal mind. There is no self/other, so it is not arrived-at in self-awareness only. The existence of subjective/objective is not experienced, so it is not arrived-at in their absence. Feeling does not exist as an objective sphere of Awareness, so it is not arrived-at even in a nondual “experience”. There is neither mind nor mental product, so it is not arrived-at “In your own mind”. It is not illumined or unillumined, so it is not arrived-at in “self-illumination”…]
˚
[Now, so long as the nonexperience of the existence of both subjective and objective is realized, all dharmas, being unstable, dawn as a Great Total Disentanglement to the yoga practitioners. Therefore, as a sign that the internal grasping subject has been cleared up, the external graspable objects are disentangled into spread-out space.]
When looking off toward the sphere of external appearances,
everything is flawed, irregular, unpenetrable, faulty and falling apart,
without qualities of give and take.
Appearances, sounds, memories, awareness, experiences, feelings…
are not as they were before.
“What is this?
Lunatic hallucinations?
Or am I inside a dream?”
laugh those yogis to themselves.
[When the yoga practitioners understand themselves, they are ready to understand the appearance of anything, just as a slight-of-hand expert knows his own magic shows to be untrue and, so, is in a position to understand the magical illusions of other sleight-of-hand experts as well.]
˚
[The appearances which dawn from within realization are further shown to be unreliable.]
Of friend/enemy, like/dislike, close/distant
there is no conception.
Making no difference between day and night,
a single beam,
they have wakened from the vicious circle
where mental objects are taken as definitive.
They don’t worry themselves over a
“self-engendered Full Knowledge continuity,”
being as they are beyond the encagements of accepting, rejecting,
renouncing things or using them as ethical antidotes.
When such is realized, it is nondual Full Knowledge
and they have come to the underlying meaning of self-engendered Total Good.
There is no place to turn back. They have come to the final ground.
[Note: “Day” = Friends. Like. Close.
“Night” = Enemies. Dislike. Distant.]
˚
[Getting rid of the four similacra that seem to be sheer hype.]
While not realizing levelness through the self-engendered continuity,
they are attached to the word “nonduality”.
So they are confident in their intellectual probings
of what is not at all a mental object.
This is the very embodiment of backwards thinking,
receptive centre of unaware darkness.
˚
[Precepts so that the lucky ones will realize their implicit substantiality as a spacious foundation receptive centre, level and complete.]
Therefore, the Thought Completion King learns the nondual
in the untransformed and untransported self-engendered.
The meaning of the nonduality of sangsara/nirvana,
the three realms totally released,
is the CITADEL of Dharmabody self-dawned from
the insides of its nature.
It appears sky-like pure beyond compare.
˚
[Now realizations of the ungrasping and unattached are subsumed in a single essential meaning as the spacious sky receptive centre.]
So long as one is attached to distinctions, “this and that,”
one remains in duality, the encagement of error in oneself and others.
As soon as there is no preferences for the separateness that “this” implies,
as soon as everything is a level beam with no mental objectives,
the Vajra Being pronounces,
“Nonduality is realized.”