The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels. Chapter 6: Everything is Included in Bodhicitta

The Realm of Dharmas,

a Treasury of Jewels,

by Longchen Rabjampa

CHAPTER SIX

EVERYTHING IS INCLUDED IN BODHICITTA

[It has been shown that all dharmas are included in the purity of the Awareness substantiality.  Meanwhile, it will be shown that, because Dharma Proper and suchness are on the same side, everything is included in the Unproduced continuity.]

As lights are gathered in the essence of the Sun, even

so, the roots of all dharmas are gathered in Bodhicitta.

Appearances/becoming, material/vital and even impure error,

in short, all occurrences are, when the realm of their situations

and dependencies is examined,

gathered in the continuum of foundationless, totally disentangled

citta.

The continuum of the great x—pansive total receptive center that

Dharma Proper is

is gathered in a place beyond the words and meanings of 

‘error’ and ‘unerror’.

˚

[Just as dreams are included in the sleep continuity, so all dharma-having (objects) are included in the continuity of Awareness.]

The appropriate manifestations which are pure—

Body, Buddha, and

the miraculous play of Full Knowledge activity as well,

are included without inclusion or exclusion

in the continuity of the self-engendered.

Including all appearances/becoming and sangsara/nirvana,

the Bodhicitta

is an uncompounded void-clarity like the sun-sky.

From the beginning, it is an expansive total receptive centre,

self-engendered.

[This Awareness-Bodhicitta which excludes no dharmas whatsoever is, like the sun, naturally and implicitly luminous and, like the sky, void and ownerless.  The self-engendered Full Knowledge is called “the primordial Dharmabody which has buddhaized whatever is.”

The All Making King says,

Dharma Proper beyond everything is Bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta is the heart of all dharmas.

Bodhicitta is the root of all dharmas.

As the root, it combines the purpose of everything.]

˚

[The great receptive centre shows the nature of citta.]

The continuity of the changeless sky great receptive centre that

Mind Proper is

has no fixed part to play.  It is Bodhicitta’s special power.

Since it steers all sangsara/nirvana Vehicles,

the one thing that is unemployed is the master of all.

It isn’t separated from objective spheres of those who have

gone to extremes.

There has been no place to go besides the Dharma-Proper-Bodhicitta.

˚

[Now there will be closely formulated for the All-including a simile of its unmovedness.]

The total good of everything has dawned as one naturally-arrived-at.

Everything without exception included, its supremacy is beyond compare.

The greatest of greats total good Realm of Dharmas,

like a king, draws everything together.

Unmoved, yet it has wielded its power over all sangsara/nirvana.

[Just as a king, without moving from his own palace, draws his subjects under his rule, the continuum of Awareness, without moving from Dharma Proper, draws together all sangsara/nirvana.

Everything was made by Bodhicitta and, while everything has dawned from citta, the Mind Proper was not made by anything.  It is beyond all actions and things to do; so things to do are shown to be unnecessary.

The All Making King says,

Bodhicitta made everything.  One was not made.

The all-made the nature of clear comprehension made.

For the one unmade, making is unnecessary.]

˚

[Because the nature of the totality of dharmas is levelness, it is shown to lack good/bad, pushing/striving.]

Everything is totally good.          Not one is bad.

Without good/bad, things are one in Total Good.

Things arrived-at or unarrived-at are all one Realm.

All are, in naturally-arrived-at unmoving levelness,          one.

˚

[What has dawned from the Realm is in itself beyond pushing/striving.]

Everything has dawned from one.    The Realm of All Dharmas

is nothing to be made.                      In its continuity

is nothing to be pushing,                nothing to be striving for.

Pushing/striving do not exist apart from the appropriate Realm.

So from where did you push?          To where do you strive?

˚

[Therefore, it is beyond both cause/effect & pushing/striving.]

There is no objective field of pushing,     nothing to see in meditation,

no place to strive for.     It hasn’t come from somewhere else

It doesn’t come.     It doesn’t go.     It is levelness,

the Dharmabody.

It is subsumed into the Realm of the Great Drop, naturally completed.

[The sky-like substance of Mind Proper is a single spot Realm. Since all dharmas are included in its continuity, there is nothing to be pushed by the ten natures, etc. That which isn’t to be pushed is the Realm of Dharmas, undelineated.]

˚

[Now it will be shown that in Awareness-Bodhicitta all Vehicles are included.  The way the three lesser Vehicles are included:]

The scriptural authorities of Hearers,

                                          Solitary Realizers &

                                           Bodhisattvas

have determined the non existence of me and mine.

The underlying meaning to the “sky-like undiffusive” is the same.

And the scriptural authorities of the supremely secret great yoga of Ati?

Because no matter how it is that the self-engendered Full Knowledge

is actually assigned

to the expansive sky-without-self/other-divisions,

the underlying intention is, in any case, included

in this supreme Heart Ati.

[The Hearers hold that all internal and external dharmas are sky-like, lacking selfhood and ‘person’. The Solitary Realizers say, moreover, that half of the dharmas are not things to be grasped. The Bodhisattvas say that the absence of grasper and grasped, of selfhood pertaining to either dharmas or ‘person’, is sky-like. These views affirm rather than contradict the view of Ati-yoga.]

˚

[The middling three Vehicles are also included in Ati.] [Note: The Diamond Peak is a tantra of the Yoga class held as especially authoritative by the Japanese Shingon school.]

All the three classes of Kriya,

                                      Upa &

                                   Yoga

are the same in holding that the immaculate attainments of body,

                                                                                     speech &

                                                                                      mind

come from the offering rituals of oneself,

                                                 the divinities &

                                                  samadhi.

According to the secret king of scriptural authorities,

the Diamond Peak,

appearances and sounds are immaculate Awareness totally divinized.

Since they bring the immaculate attainments of body,

                                                                     speech &

                                                                      mind into the open,

all their underlying intentions are included in this supreme Heart Ati.

˚

[The superior three Vehicles are completed in Ati.]

The three grades Maha,

                         Anu &

                         Ati believe

in the unmoving Dharma Proper and self-engendered Full Knowledge.

Since appearances/becoming, material/vital, the fields of gods & goddesses,

and Realm-Full Knowledge are immaculate in their indivisibility,

in this most secret supreme, everything is immaculate.

Everything is disentangled into the total vastness receptive centre of

Dharmabody.

Without named dharmas, pushing-working or accepting/rejecting,

everything is from the unmade Palace, the total receptive centre

field of comfort

with no in or out side, spread-out,   embracing all.

All these underlying intentions are included in the great secret

Heart Ati.

˚

[Now, everything being included in Bodhicitta, the meaning is completely summed up.]

One complete.   All complete.   The receptive centre where

all dharmas are included

is included in the totally settled, self-luminous Great

Naturally-arrived-at.

[“One complete.” means completion in Bodhicitta.

  “Two complete.” means the creations of mind are complete.

  “All complete.” means every last thing is perfect.]

 

Return to the beginning.

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. 

The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels, Chapter 4: The Nature of Bodhicitta

 

—CHAPTER FOUR—

THE NATURE OF BODHICITTA

[So now that it has been approximated by metaphors, in order to drive home the significance, the nature of Awareness-Bodhicitta is uncompromisingly presented as follows.]

The nature of the all-inclusive Bodhicitta is like this.

It is not an appearance.It is beyond the dharmas of appearance.

It is not a void.It is beyond the dharmas of void.

It is not an entity.It has no thingness no labels.

It is not a nonentity.It embraces all sangsara/nirvana.

It is not an entity or nonentity.It is the primordial Realm,

naturally-arrived-at and level.

It has no orientation or preferences.It has no ground, no root, no thingness.

[The substance of Awareness is beyond diffusive extremes of thought and communication; so it is not arrived-at in the sphere of entities and nonentities.  it totally embraces all sangsara/nirvana.]

˚

[By nature, its substantiality is completed in Dharma Proper, spread-out and pure.]

Its flow uninterrupted, it is the receptive centre of

clearly comprehended awareness.

Untransformed and untransported, it spreads throughout the sky-Realm.

The totally incomparable significance of self-engendered Full Knowledge

is subsumed in a single unborn, unending drop

that is unstable and all-pervading, completely devoid of extreme

orientations.

˚

[This Realm, while all have it, is shown to be the objective sphere of only a few lucky ones.]

An inheritance of unwavering,  level,  naturally-arrived-at Vajra Heart,

this exceedingly spread-out supreme Realm beyond inclusion & exclusion

is no objective sphere to be described by words.

It is a sphere where each one awares itself,

a spreading receptive centre of Insight.

The yoga practitioner divorced from mental and verbal diffusiveness

knows it to be beyond description and nondescription.

Meditations and things to meditate on are not to be found;

So there is no need to slay the enemies     sinking & scattering,

& distracting thoughts.

[The Diamond Cutter Sutra says,

Dharma Proper is no knowable.

It is not possible to know.]

˚

[Now it is shown that there is no acceptance-rejection of good/bad because appearances/becoming abides in the Buddhafield.]

As there is no sense of belonging to self or others

in the Dharma Proper residing in the total reservoir,

these very three realms are a field of level nature,

Awareness pure and level, a field permeated by the Great Naturally-arrived-at.

[The Occult Matrix says,

The dharmas of the entirety of the three existences

are all without exception Buddhaized.

Dharmas aside from Buddhahood itself

even the Buddhas themselves do not find.]

˚

[So while sangsara even is Buddhaized, dawning as an appropriate manifestation of Awareness, it is also shown that nirvana, too, is nothing more than the appropriate manifestation of Buddhahood.]

The Buddhas of all time are pure, appropriate manifestations

without accepting/rejecting— all in a single beam.

So there is not the least thing to be obtained from others.

All dharmas shine in that great receptive centre of Mind Proper;

there has not been the slightest compromise

on what levelness means.

[In Pure Awareness there is nothing besides what we call ‘Buddha’ since there is no looking for a substantiality of ‘Buddha’ other than through the mind that pushes and strives with causes and for results itself.  Other than Awareness simply pure of adventitious defilements, there is no ‘Buddha’.

The Occult Matrix says

You do not get complete Buddhahood

from anything in space and time.

Mind Proper is completely buddhaized.

Though they search, the Buddhas themselves do not ‘find’.]

˚

[If such an awareness discovers its own substantiality, turnoffs and obscurations are forcefully closed off.]

No inside.    No outside.    Untroubled by dawnings and settings.

The basis for lighting up the darkness of the horizons is Bodhicitta.

Nothing given up, the turnoffs are forcefully closed off.

[The All Making King says,

This Bodhicitta nature

is the essence of all dharmas.

Unproduced, it is completely pure;

so there are no obscurations.

It has no path to go down,

so there are no turnoffs.

Totally naturally-arrived-at,

there is nothing to look for.

In the single Bodhicitta,

the essence of all dharmas,

in the one, various things are numbered,

so turnoffs and obscurations come in.

Going down what isn’t to be gone down,

turnoffs come in.

Looking for what isn’t to be looked upon,

the obscurations of non-seeing come in.]

˚

[Whatever may appear in the continuum of Awareness has not moved from the Realm.]

The various modes of appearance of beings,

of the worlds, and even of the Body and Full Knowledge of pure Buddhahood

fill the sky-Realm with their uninhibited play that

dawns from the special powers of understanding and misunderstanding.

There is only understanding and misunderstanding in the Realm of Dharmas

continuity.

From the pure appearance of Bliss Travellers through understanding;

and from misunderstanding, unawareness and our tendencies toward 

subject/object dichotomies,

various things appear.  Yet they have not moved from the Realm.

[Buddhas come from the self-engendered Full Knowledge-Realm recognizing its own substantiality.  The lack of that recognition makes sentient beings seem to appear.  Since both are of one taste in the Awareness continuity, there is no belittling [of sentient beings] or partiality [for Buddhas].]

˚

[That Awareness is shown to be a great unimpeded void-clarity.]

Bodhicitta is the real basis of everything.

Its character unimpeded, whatever variations dawn

are clarified in the Realm of Pure Dharma Proper, self-clarifying.

So it is undifferentiated and unbreached.

Free-ranging is Awareness’ style.

[Like a pure crystal ball, its substance is void and clear.  From the continuity of the unarrived-at Unproduced, dawns the ceaseless play of whatever.]

˚

[Broadly explaining the nature of the foregoing.]

The self-engendered, passing-right-through Full Knowledge

expands its receptive centre.

Its Sheer Luminosity unobscured, without inner/outer, is:

a Great Light,          a Bodhicitta mirror,          self-engendered Awareness,

a wish-producing precious jewel,          the Realm of Dharmas.

Since everything produces itself without pushing,

the self-engendered Full Knowledge is the best of wish-fulfillers.

˚

[Awareness is shown to be an x-pansive receptive centre of clear comprehension.]

However much the qualities of its greatness may be enumerated,

the supreme Method of Realm coming from Realm

dawns unimpededly.

As everything is naturally completed in the unproduced realm,

it is a receptive centre of clearly comprehended Voidness

that outshines material objects;

it is a receptive centre of clearly comprehended, inherent self-Awareness

that outshines the Void.

˚

[The significance of the preceding is summed up in the Great X-pansive Receptive Centre of Sky.]

Bodhicitta totally lacks appearances/Voidness.

Not two,  unattached,  unthinkable miracles happen.

The timeless,  unproduced Realm of Dharmas

is a receptive centre untransformed, indivisible and uncompounded.

The Realm of eternity’s Buddhas’ Aware Full Knowledge

is a receptive centre of clearly comprehended Awareness

that outshines subject/object dichotomies.

It has no in or out side, Dharma Proper wide-open by nature.

[In Awareness’ substance, appearances, Voidness, etc., are not arrived-at.  The uncompoundedness of the Realm that levels past, present and future is like this—Awareness totally dawns as the Buddhas of past, present and future; so it is the Dharmabody without subject/object dichotomies.]

 — Return to Chapter One

or continue to Chapter Five

The Realm of Dharmas, Chapter Three: Metaphors of Bodhicitta

 

CHAPTER THREE

METAPHORS OF BODHICITTA

[Having shown the nature of Bodhicitta, now the nature where all dharmas are gathered into the Great Completion in Bodhicitta’s continuity is explained.]

Absolutely  everything  is  gathered,  subsumed  in  Bodhicitta.

Because no dharma whatsoever is excluded from    Bodhicitta.

all dharmas are of the nature of                                      Bodhicitta.

˚

[These three things are to be known for Bodhicitta— its simile, the significance of its simile, and its signs.  First, the simile—]

The SIMILE of Bodhicitta is “It is like the sky.”

In Citta there is no root cause and nothing that produced it and

so it is unpredictable, beyond communicating, beyond the sphere of thought.

“Sky Realm” is just an illustrative metaphor

which is not to say, “The metaphor itself is it!”

How then would the thought and expression lead to the metaphor’s meaning?

It is to be understood as an illustration of Bodhicitta’s pure nature.

˚

The SIGNIFICATION of the sky-equal self-awareness

   that Bodhicitta is

is   that it is no thing for thought,

       beyond illustration and communication.  It

is   self-luminous,          unmoving—spacious receptive centre

       of Sheer Luminosity.     It

is        Dharmabody—spacious centre of Bodhi Heart.

˚

[Now an uncompromisingly presented statement on the nature of Awareness-Bodhicitta which is sky-like pure, not belittled and devoid of partial definitions.]

Its SIGNS:  From its special powers dawns everything there is.

When they dawn, there is no ground for dawning, no agent of dawning.

Even just the word ‘dawning’, if you think about it,

is sky-like.

When you comprehend the non-preferential Great Levelness

in one fell swoop, precisely

that is the receptive centre of the spread-out-to-the-limit

beyond subject/object dichotomies.

[The manner of dawning in the Awareness continuity is unimpeded like the reflection of the sky in clear waters.  It dawns as various things, but even as they seem to dawn, in truth there is no ground or agent for dawning.  So they dissolve in the Void, pass over the pass into the nonpreferential Dharmabody.  By the statement, “nonpreferential Great Levelness,” the Mind Proper may be understood as sky-like.]

˚

[The significance of that is subsumed in the Dharma Proper without centre or circumference.]

Uncompromisingly presented illustrations are made by way of simile,

significance and signs

all the way up to self-engendered Full Knowledge and Dharma Proper.

In these sky-like Three Great Rays personified,

absolutely everything is included.  Their nature is undifferentiated

and unbreached.

In the Realm womb of the great vast level beam,

everything is totally levelled, with no sooner/later,

no good/bad.

This is the meaning behind Vajra Being and Total Good.

[The All Making King says,

In order to actually realize its meaning…

the simile is to consider it as sky-like;

the significance is the unproduced Dharma Proper;

and the signs are Mind Proper unimpeded.]

˚

[That Awareness is taught to be like the essence of the sun.]

Bodhicitta is like the essence of the sun.    For,

in its own continuity is Sheer Luminosity, totally uncompounded.

No dharmas cloud it.

It is naturally-arrived-at by passing right through.

No dharmas diffuse it.

It is the undistracted Dharma Proper continuity.

˚

[An expansion on the preceding verse.]

The Three Bodies are beyond inclusion and exclusion:

from the Void—the Dharmabody,

from the shining—the Perfect Assets Body,

and the ray-bearing Emanation Body.

When their naturally-arrived-at qualities are totally taken on,

they are unclouded by the darknesses of faults and injuries.  They are

one—no sooner/later, no past/present/future, no transforming/transporting;

one—embracing all Buddhas and sentient beings.  This

one    is called, “self-engendered Bodhicitta.”

[Dharmabody is the void part of Mind Proper.

Perfect Assets Body is the shining part.

Emanation Body is the dawning part.

But even while saying these things, substantially

you get no recognizable dharmas at all…and the underlying meaning of those statements is that past, present & future are naturally-arrived-at without transforming or transporting.  Because, in the manner of an essence   it embraces all sangsara/nirvana,  the Sugata Essence vastly embraces all animate beings.]

˚

[From the same continuity, appearances and becoming are shown to dawn.]

Bodhicitta’s special powers are whatever dawns,

all the various appearances of birth and motion,

material and vital, appearances and becoming,

realization and lack of realization.

[The nature of Awareness is like a mirror, and the special powers in its continuity are like mirrored images.  This is how it is the basis for the dawning of everything.]

˚

[Apart from their mere dawning, they have no nature.]

While all these appear, there are no several natures.

Like mirage water, dreams and echoes;

like phantoms, reflections, Gandharva cities

and faulty vision, they have no existence whatsoever.

There is no basis for their appearances.  They are

mere temporary perceptions

in between which the Dharmabody  may be realized.

[Just as dreams do not come when you have not gone to sleep or after you wake up, but rather in the depths of sleep, even so, the erroneous appearances of sangsara occur neither in the time of the first Dharma Proper nor when the goal of nirvana is achieved in the end.]

˚

[Showing that those appearances are unmoved from Dharma Proper.]

Out of the nature of naturally-arrived-at Bodhicitta

unimpeded play, the sangsara-nirvana magical display, comes.

When all those projections are comprehended in one fell

swoop in the Realm,

you may be sure that they have never ever moved from the primordial

continuity.

˚

[Because everything is completed in the Realm, it is taught to be Dzogchen, the Great Completion.]

Here all is the Bodhicitta continuity.

One complete, all is complete.     The unmade significance is

complete.

The nature naturally completed,

the self-engendered Full Knowledge,     is

complete.

˚

[In the substance of Awareness which is not-at-all-arrived-at, everything dawns.  Therefore, they dawn without impediment out of the continuity of the unproduced.]

Bodhicitta, whether visible or invisible,

isn’t in external/internal or sangsara/nirvana dharmas.

But yet, out of its special powers, by the nature of motion,

appearances/becoming and sangsara/nirvana

dawn as the play of the myriad things.

˚

[Since the substance of Awareness is not-at-all-arrived-at, it is beyond appearances and void.  For what is essentially not a subject for discussion, the occurrence of deceptive appearances arising in its continuity has not been experienced.]

From their mere dawning alone,

forms of void nature appear.

From the birthless they appear to be born.

From the very time of their appearing to be born, there was nothing

birthed.

From the unended things may appear to be ended.

But there is no ending.

Forms of void illusion appear.

From their abiding alone

no dharmas of abiding exist.

There is no basis for making them abide, only

a comingless, goingless continuity.

However things appear, they are not thereby arrived-at.

So it is enough to say just, “They have no nature.”

˚

[The meaning is summed up in the simple fact that no matter how things appear, they have no nature thereby.]

Those appearances may dawn themselves from the special powers,

but “interdependent origination” is an exact term for expressing their

nature.

From the very time they appear to dawn from the special powers,

there are no possibilities for preferences, no side taking as to whether

they do or do not dawn.

So ‘special powers’ itself is a mere term of no substance.

Everything has always never

never moved the least bit away from

the untransformed and untransported

continuity that Bodhicitta is.

 — Return to Chapter One

The Realm of Dharmas, Chapter One

Homage to Total Good.

Homage

to these strange and marvelous dharmas,

naturally-arrived-at from beginningless time;

to this self-engendered full knowledge,

Sheer Luminosity Bodhicitta;

to this unmoving, undiffusive treasury,

source of all appearances/becoming,

material/vital, sangsara/nirvana.

Listen attentively as I explain these marvelous total vastnesses:

the peak of all peaks of Vehicles —

receptive centre of sun, moon & King of Mountains;

the Sheer Luminosity naturally-arrived-at —

receptive centre of Vajra Heart;

the unsought, unstriven for —

receptive centre of nature as it lies.

• • •

CHAPTER ONE

NIRVANA AND SANGSARA HAVE NEVER MOVED FROM THE REALM

[. . .and the totality of dharmas has never moved from the continuity of the sky-like Great Completion.]

Out of the naturally-arrived-at receptive centre everything comes.

On what ground?  It is substantially void, its nature unimpeded.

No thing is arrived-at/existent.                            Every thing appears.

While sangsara and nirvana display themselves

from the receptive centre of the Three Bodies,

still, they have never moved from the Realm, the Dharma Proper,

Buddhafield of Comfort.

˚

No things have ever reverted from being ornaments of the

ALL REALM—

the continuity of changeless space

(great receptive centre of Mind Proper),

the receptive centre of compassion’s miracles

(You never know what role it will play.).

Objective and subjective absorptions and projections

are Bodhicitta’s special powers.

Since whatever appears is no thing whatsoever,

marvelously amazing, these miracles of dharmas!

˚

Inner and outer comings and goings, all that appears in shapes,

are ornaments of the Realm, appearing as a physical wheel.

All heard sounds & languages without exception

are ornaments of the Realm, appearing as a verbal wheel.

Memory, awareness, flightiness, projections, misunderstandings, and thoughtlessness as well

are ornaments of the Realm, appearing as a mental wheel.

˚

The six classes of beings and the four modes of birth

have moved not one iota from the Realm of Dharmas continuity.

The worlds of appearances and becoming, the six spheres of sense,

the subjective and objective realms,

are a great vastness of Total Voidness.

“They seem to be missing from the Realm of Dharmas continuity,”

says the way of illusion.                                                  Baseless warbling!

In just the way they show themselves, they dawn as ornaments of the

Realm of Dharmas.

˚

[Dharmabody.]

The by nature level and unbudging Dharmabody that Bodhicitta is

is totally settled, self-Void, untransformed and untransported

in the great continuity of the realm of things seen and heard.

Hence all appearances are the continuity of the

Dharma Proper/self-engendered Full Knowledge

coiled up in a single, comfortable receptive centre

unworked for,

unstriven for.

˚

[Perfect Assets Body.]

Self-displaying and immovable, its Perfect Asset

is a nature naturally-arrived-at from exactly the way it appears.

There is no fixing or transforming it.

It is by nature evenly distributed.

˚

[Emanation Body.]

The meaning behind these self-produced phantom marvels

which have emanated by virtue of their dawnings as role-playings

(without being mixed up in the myriad things)

has never left their job of being

the unemployed   Total Good.

˚

[Body and Full Knowledge are perfected in the Awareness continuity.]

While in Bodhicitta (which has no pitfalls) itself

the unseekable Three Bodies are naturally completed,

they are unmoved from the Realm, naturally-arrived-at,

uncompounded.

While Body and Full Knowledge are a natural completion of

Buddha-activity,

They are the Total Completion of the Great Accumulation,

receptive centre of the great Total Dawn.

˚

[The Buddhafield as receptive centre of Awareness.]

Even though one were viewing the Dharma Proper in the Realm of Dharmas continuity,

the totally naturally-arrived-at, the unmoving, unchanging Field;

that knowledge would itself dawn unimpededly as an ornament of the Realm.

Having done nothing, looked for nothing, totally placed,

they’re like the sun and the sky it illumines.

These strange and marvelous dharmas!

˚

In this totally naturally-arrived-at Realm womb

Sangsara is Total Good.  Nirvana is Total Good.

In the Total Good receptive centre sangsara and nirvana are totally lacking.

Appearance is Total Good.  Void is Total Good.

In the Total Good receptive centre appearance and Void are totally lacking.

Birth and Death?  Total Good.  Pleasure and suffering?  Total Good.

The Total Good receptive centre has no birth, death, pleasure and suffering.

Self and others?  Total Good.  Eternalism and nihilism?  Total Good.

The Total Good receptive centre has no self, others, eternalism or nihilism.

˚

Because we hold on to being and nonbeing, we are bound to error.

How strange we want to attach appropriate labels

like ‘sangsara’ and ‘nirvana’

to something so dreamlike it won’t hold up!

˚

All is the great naturally-arrived-at Total Good.

There has not been, is not, and will not be any error.

The mere word ‘becoming’ tells us we are beyond extreme statements on ‘being’ and ‘nonbeing’.

No one has made an error about anything in the past.

Now there is no error.                                No error is to come.

This is the meaning behind, “The three becomings are pure from the letter ‘A’.”

˚

[You don’t get anywhere by merely being without error in regard to the word ‘illusion’.]

Since there is no error, there is no errorless Dharma.

The totally naturally-arrived-at, self-produced great Awareness

was, is and will be unliberated.

A mere word has never made anyone experience liberation in the past

and it will not in the future.                                   Bonds are totally lacking.

It is a sky-like purity;     unbelittlable, with no partial definitions.

This is the meaning behind, “Absolutely liberated from the letter ‘A’.”

˚

[The great vastness of the natural, level Realm does not experience the existence of nirvana and sangsara.]

In brief,

out of the Realm womb naturally-arrived-at and vast,

whether it be sangsara or nirvana that arises

as role-playing from the special powers,

still, there is no experience of sangsara’s or nirvana’s existence

on account of that arising.

Whatever dreams arise through the special power of sleep

are devoid of meaning;

so, spread yourself out to the limit on the great, vast natural smoothness,

the comfortable bed of Awareness.