Tingrian Couplets in the Meditation Manual

Padampa in Saspola Cave, Ladakh
Photo by Rob Linrothe

Here you will find on offer translations of six Tingrian Couplets. They were preserved in a 15th-century Nyingma & Kagyü meditation manual composed by Khedrup Yeshé Gyeltsen. Those interested in Tibeto-logical details can read all the way to the end of the blog if they like. 

The Tingri Gyatsa, or Tingri Hundred is a widely renowned monument of Tibetan literature, always attributed to the authorship of Padampa Sangye, the south Indian meditation master who died in Tibet in 1105 or 1117 CE. Like Kabir’s Dohas, it’s all in two-line verse form. Each couplet ought to end with a vocative, “[oh my] Tingrians!” And I should add, the word “my” is not intended as an expression of ownership, but one of affectionate concern. Now you know what a Tingrian Couplet is, and you are welcome to read a few samples just below.

I realize these couple of verses may not be enough for everyone, so with those less easily satisfied people in mind I’d like to offer a complete English translation (Tibetan text also supplied) of one version of the Tingri Hundred:

Tap here

If you feel you could use some introduction and discussion, go back to our blog of December 2008, the one with the title “The Tingri Hundred”:

Tap here

• 1 •

Dampa said,

Delusions are not there in the base, they arise incidentally.

Comprehending this characteristic is enough, my Tingrians.

• 2 •

Lord Dampa Gyagar said,

If you are unable to renounce sangsaric dharmas,

even knowing all the scriptures is of no help.

• 3 & 4 •

By Dampa:

When your own aims are not fulfilled you do the aims of others no good.

First of all, do your practices, my Tingrians.

Forming easy relations with delusive appearances, you mix with them.

Bring understanding in their wake, my Tingrians.

• 5 •

If there is something you are attached to, that same thing also binds you.

There is no need for it whatsoever, my Tingrians.

• 6 •

By Padampa Gyagar:

Of all the virtues, rejoicing in others’ success is the best.

Don’t be envious of others my Tingrians.

§   §   §

Bibliographical affairs

I made use of one particularly fine cursive manuscript version of a previously unstudied (and needless to say untranslated) text by a teacher of Katok Monastery named Khedrup Yeshé Gyeltsen. I want to give him the dates 1395 to 1458 CE simply because that’s what I find in Cuevas’ book and Ehrhard’s essay, both listed below. However, Chatral Rinpoche’s history of Katok Monastery gives him a birthdate of 1455, sixty years later, so there is room for discussion. For the time being we can at least be satisfied that he lived in the 15th century. He exists in the BDRC database (see no. P10291), but no dates were there when I looked earlier today. 

I would say that there is nothing remotely comparable to his meditation manual, but that isn’t quite true. It reminds you overall of a much better known anthology of quotations about meditation, the one by Takpo Tashi Namgyal. The latter, written a century later, is entirely a Kagyü work. It scarcely quotes from works of Nyingmapas and Zhijepas, whereas this meditation manual from Katok Monastery explicitly states in its opening words that it encompasses “Zhi Rdzogs Phyag.”  That means Zhijé, Dzogchen and Mahâmudrâ.  We don’t often see them in a triad like this.*

(*Indeed, searching through the 15 million pages of the BUDA database in less than half a minute turns up only three positive matches, and wouldn’t you know, all three of them appear to share the same authorship with the meditation manual.)

Folio 1 verso of the meditation manual.
Notice the phrase zhi rdzogs phyag gsum in the middle of line 3.

• Another difference is that the meditation manual starts out with a lengthy section covering the normal topics of preliminary practices, or sngon-'gro, that we are accustomed to finding in Path Stage, tenrim (bstan-rim) and lamrim (lam-rim) texts. These topics include contemplations on impermanence, the rareness of human rebirth, and so on. I think you probably know about these things already.

• As far as Zhijé materials are concerned, the meditation manual embraces a lot more than just the few Tingrian couplets we’ve  included in this weblog. Most remarkably, it has an entire section near the end, running from folios 523 through 550, filled with material from the Kunga questions-and-answers texts (I haven’t identified which one yet, but you can be sure I will be looking into this sometime soon).

Chatral Rinpoche (Bya-bral Sangs-rgyas-rdo-rje, 1913-2015), Dpal Kaḥ-thog-pa’i Chos-’byung Rin-chen Phreng-ba, Snga-’gyur Bstan-pa’i ’Byung-gnas Kaḥ-thog Rdo-rje-gdan (n.d.), in 221 pages, composed between 1985 and 1988. TBRC no. W3CN3398. 

The biographical sketch of Khedrup Yeshé Gyaltsen is found at pp. 53-55. Here we find his Dzogchen and Marpa Kagyü (that means Smar-pa Bka'-brgyud, not Mar-pa Bka'-brgyud) studies emphasized, with no mention of Zhijé. We do find mention of his composition of our meditation manual, on p. 54, with the title Phyag-rgya-chen-po'i Khrid-gzhung Snying-po Don-gyi Man-ngag Rgya-mtsho'i Gter-mdzod. It’s intriguing to know that he spent much of his later life in meditation retreats in regions of far eastern Tibet, in the neighborhoods of the holy mountain Kawa Karpo, and even in ’Jang, or present-day north Yunnan. He may have even visited Shangrila, made virtually real only quite recently.

Bryan Cuevas, The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2003), p. 144.

Franz Karl Ehrhard, “Kaḥ thog pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan (1466-1540) and His Activities in Sikkim and Bhutan,” Bulletin of Tibetology, vol. 39, no. 2 (November 2003), pp. 9 26. At p. 9 please note the dates of our author. The same date for him, along with an alias Bu-’bor Ye-shes-rgyal-mtshan, may be found in Cuevas’ book.

Matthew T. Kapstein, ed., Tibetan Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, Cornell University Press (Ithaca 2024), in 2 vols. 

I urge you, order this exceptionally interesting and beautiful book, then look at vol. 1, p. 131. Figure 4.7 shows the title page, in color, of a different manuscript of the meditation manual than the one I used. It labels as its source The British Library Board, Or.15292, dating the manuscript to ca. 16th century.  To see it in black-and-white, see TBRC no. W1CZ892. Its title-page title is Rdzogs-pa-chen-po Snying-po Don-gyis Gter-mdzod. This manuscript has quite a few very well executed miniature paintings, but seeing them in TBRC’s poorly scanned microfilm is more than a little sad.

The label says it’s Garab Dorje

Khedrup Yeshé Gyaltsen (Mkhas-grub Ye-shes-rgyal-mtshan), Mkhas-grub Dznyâ-na-ke-tus* mdzad-pa'i Man-ngag Rgya-mtsho, a cursive manuscript in 587 folios.  TBRC no. WA3CN2867.  

This is the only version I’ve made use of here (I supply the original folio numbers, not those “image numbers” that are no more than accidental byproducts of the scanning process), even though there are at least three and maybe four other versions of it that are possible to locate at BUDA website. Their titles are different, so best of luck finding them. One advantage of the version I used is that it marked the persons or texts it quotes from with red letters most of the time. That made it easier for me to find the quotations I did find.

(*Technically Sanskrit ketu ought to be tog,  ‘pinnacle,’ in Tibetan. However, dhvaja-ketu (rgyal-mtshan-gyi tog, ‘pinnacle of the victory banner’) is such a common phrase, you could see how the two parts could get confounded. That’s how Dznyâ-na-ke-tu can be a Tibskritic form of Ye-shes-rgyal-mtshan. Is it clear? Putting the names of respected Tibetan teachers into Sanskritic form isn’t just a game they play. It shows respect.)

Takpo Tashi Namgyal (Dwags-po Bkra-shis-rnam-rgyal, 1513-1596?), Mahāmudrā: The Quintessence of Mind and Meditation, translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa, Shambhala (Boston 1986). A fresh translation by Elizabeth Callahan was published not long ago. 

The problem of the author’s identity has been addressed and solved by Matthew Kapstein and David Jackson, and I believe them, but there is no way you can make me go into all that discussion right now.

 

—

Try going to the website of Katok Monastery at this address, and then look for "Yeshe Gyamtsen." The title of the work we used here can be found there, listed among the thirteen primary sources for teachings at Katog. Its title is given in English as “Ocean of Mahamudra Core Instructions.” This is interesting, as other versions of the title lead you to think it would be exclusively devoted to Dzogchen.

Afterword

From my Tibeto-logical research perspective, I was very excited to find these few quotations of Tingrian couplets. Why? First of all, just because I’ve found so little evidence for them between the 13th and 17th centuries. I always assumed or felt fairly sure they would have been known to many throughout that time, but even just a little more evidence is nice to see. Another matter: If you put the various versions side by side and compare them (as I have done, in a document that isn’t quite in good enough shape to share), you can see that over the centuries significant transformations took place. Some verses are made to yield quite different messages, and this is not always due to accidental misreadings of the manuscript by careless scribes. Sometimes motivated changes are the only explanations with feet on them. Our Tingrian Couplet no. 1 already supplies a good example.

I believe I have good enough reasons to support me if I say that the only Tingrian couplets Padampa actually composed was a set I call the Tingri Thirteen (or should that be Tingri Twelve?). These couplets were pronounced by Padampa as part of his last will and testament shortly before his death in 1105 or 1117. I’ve been meaning to put up a translation of it, but it deserves more polishing. 

A much longer set was pronounced by his disciple Kunga shortly before his own death seven years later on. Both versions (for short I call them versions A and B) are 100% exclusive to the Zhijé Collection, or so I had thought until today. To my amazement, our meditation manual preserves two lines from the introductory verses to Kunga’s 118 Tringrian couplets (so it is not technically a Tingrian couplet, but nonetheless...). It also quotes two couplets (nos. 3&4, above) that have parallels only in B, which tells us our 15th-century author had the Kunga version available to him. I can’t imagine how. (See now the added Postscript below.)

I would understand if you were to voice loud objections, criticizing the existing broad acceptance of all hundred or so Tingrian couplets as being by Padampa himself, when here we find the larger set is indeed spoken by Kunga. The introduction to Kunga’s set clarifies this. He is reading from something he had written down previously, and he insists that it does represent the essence of Padampa’s teachings. As I understand it, they were written after the model of the Tingri Thirteen as a homage, incorporating Padampa’s ideas and perhaps quite a few of his exact words, but, yes, written by Kunga.

Let me quote from my draft translation of the most relevant passage:

Standing before the yogis gathered here in glorious Tingri,

All people of stainless insight,

Great Sons happily abiding together. 

It isn't right for me to be giving this kind of muddled speech,

I who am like a firefly in the presence of the sun.

Still, these are the basic essentials of the teachings that came from Dampa,

So with affectionate thoughts I have set them down in writing.

Later on we will not meet, so listen as I read them to you now.

The intertextual connectedness between all the different versions is a subject I’ve been thinking over for a long time, but we can say that connections between A and the later versions C through F are quite few. Connections between B and the later versions are more evident and numerous, yet fully identical couplets are rare. Looking only at the later versions C through F, we can identify two recensions I believe are basic ones. I’ve called them the monkey and rhino recensions in an earlier blog. But as I said before, these critical reflections of mine about authorship have no bearing whatsoever on the Buddhist truth and/or spiritual authority of the texts themselves. The Tingrian couplets are great Tibetan poetry. Together they are a monument to the Tibetan language, a source of wisdom and inspiration regardless of your ideas about religions, and a trigger for reflection on life and its [mis]guided aims, no matter who wrote which one when. 

I know I should end on an uplifting note, but somehow I’m inclined to do nothing of the sort. These poetic lines from the meditation manual that follow are not Tingrian couplets, as you can see, and neither could they be verified in any other source at my disposal as yet. It’s about disenchantment with religion. You can find them on folio 511 recto, line 3:

de yang pha dam pa rgya gar kyis /

dang po dad pa skyes pas gnam du dil dil mchong /

bar du dad pa yal ba ri kha (~re kha) rjes kyis gang /

tha ma dad pa log pas 'khor ba'i rting rdo btags / ces gsungs so //

Padampa Gyagar had something to say about that:

When faith first arose, you leapt freely into the sky. 

In the meantime faith dissolved, and you were full of erased sketches.

In the end faith was reversed, and sangsara’s anchor was tied fast.

Keep the faith, my friends, no matter what.

Philological scratchpad

Tingrian Couplet One (22r.2)

dam pas /

'khrul pa gzhi la med de glo bur byung /

mtshan nyid go bas chog go ding ri pa /

Dampa said,

“Delusions are not there in the base, they arise incidentally.

Comprehending this characteristic is enough, my Tingrians.”

Our new source for this verse certainly supports the readings of version B over C.  The second line of Version C reads quite differently, and yields a meaning that is less radically formulated* even while it introduces the potentially problematic concept of a ‘creator’ for delusion,** saying: “Look at the characteristics of its creator, my Tingrians” or “Inspect it for the marks of its maker”?

(*A reader of centuries gone by may have had problems with the idea that just comprehending the incidental character of delusion would be in itself sufficient for Enlightenment. These qualms may have lead them to imagine ways to improve it. **I don’t expect it to make sense very quickly, but Buddhists don’t award creator status to Brahma the way most other Indian religions do, although they do credit him with the narcissistic idea that he was the creator, as it was his belief that world-creation happened because of his wish. Brahma, as a creator figure, does supply Buddhists with a myth of origins for delusion itself.)

-C12- (compare B51 and D37)

'khrul pa gzhi la med de glo bur gyur ||

byed mkhan mtshan nyid ltos shig ding ri ba ||

-B51- (compare C12 and D37)

'khrul pa gzhi la myed de blo bur byung /

mtshan nyid go bas chog go ding ri ba /

•

Tingrian Couplet Two (215r.1)

rje dam pa rgya gar gyis 

'khor ba'i chos la mi 'byung ma nus na / 

sde snod ma lus shes kyang phan mi thogs / ces gsung /

Lord Dampa Gyagar said,

“If you are unable to renounce sangsaric dharmas,

even knowing all the scriptures is of no help.”

These two lines belong uniquely — to my utter amazement — to the Kunga version (version B) at the end of the introductory section that immediately precedes the first couplet, with Kunga doing the speaking:

skyid kyang 'gro dgos rin chen gling gi myi /

bstan yul ma yin 'jig rten brang ba'i sa /

'khor ba'i chos la yid 'byung ma nus na /

sde snod ma lus shes kyang phan mi thogs /

dam pa'i gdams pa yin no ding ri ba /

Even if he’s contented there, 

the man in the jewel island still has to go.

This world is no permanent abode.  

It’s nothing more than a travellers’ lodge.

If you are unable to renounce sangsaric dharmas,

even knowing all the scriptures would be no help.

This is the teaching of Dampa, my Tingrians.

•

Tingrian Couplets Three and Four (388r.1)

• Note: I quote the larger context here starting at folio 388 recto, line 1, but only the couplets are translated.

dam pas /

bdud kyi 'jug pa dang po bya ba yin / rang lu (~chu) nang du 'jugs nas gzhan skal par thon par gar 'ongs skabs 'dir rang gis 'phel ba chad / gzhan la phan mi 'dog pas gzabs 'tshal / yang bsgrubs pa'i dus su gzhan don byar mi rung / dge sbyor 'phel ba chad do rang bzhin pa (~sa?) / 

rang don ma 'grubs gzhan don mi 'byung bas / 

thog mar bsgrub pa gyis cig ding ri pa / 

'khrul pa'i snang ba 'brel sla sru ba yin /  

go ba rjes la skyol cig ding ri pa /  

By Dampa,

“When your own aims are not fulfilled you do the aims of others no good.

First of all, do your practices, my Tingrians.

“Forming easy relations with delusive appearances, you mix with them.

Bring understanding in their wake, my Tingrians.”

For comparison (both verses are only found in B):

-B93-

rang don ma bsgrubs gzhan don myi 'ong pas /

thog mar bsgrub pa gyis cig ding ri ba /

-B94-

'khrul pa'i snang ba 'dris par sla ba yin /

go ca rjes la khol cig ding ri ba /

It's easy to get entangled in delusive apparitions.

Keep armour on your backs, my Tingrians.

The written similarity, particularly in a cursive manuscript, between go-ba, understanding, and go-ca (=go-cha, both spellings are found in Dunhuang texts), armor or military equipment is a problem, admittedly, although I believe the reading go-ba carries more weight, has more immediate cogency.

•

Tingrian Couplet Five (389v.5)

gang la zhen pa yod na de yang 'ching /

cis kyang dgos pa med do ring ring pa [~ding ri ba] / ces gsungs /

If there is something you are attached to, that same thing also binds you.

There is no need for it whatsoever, my Tingrians.

It is odd that this couplet doesn’t seem to exist in versions B or D, while the segment “de yang ’ching” finds no collaboration in any of the previously recorded versions. Still, I believe our new version is preferable.

For comparison:

-C16- (compare E14 and F14)

gang la zhen pa byung na de yang thongs ||

cis kyang dgos pa med do ding ri ba ||

-E14- (compare C16)

gang la zhen pa yong pa de blos thongs //

cis kyang dgos pa med do X  [3v]

 

Note:  Correct yong-pa to yod-pa.

•

Tingrian Couplet Six (467v.5)

pha dam pa rgya gar kyis /

dge ba'i nang nas rjes su yi rang mchog /

gzhan la 'phrag dog ma byed ding ri pa / ces gsungs pas /

By Padampa Gyagar:

“Of all the virtues, rejoicing in others’ success is the best.

Don’t be envious of others my Tingrians.”

For comparison:

-B88-

dge ba'i nang nas rjes su yi rang mchog /

gzhan la phrag dog ma byed ding ri ba /

• • •

Postscript (July 20, 2024)

This dark and unclear detail, clipped from a Shakyamuni Buddha thangka belonging to the Giuseppe Tucci collection, can be better seen of you go here:

https://asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions/unknown-tibet-tucci-expeditions-and-buddhist-painting

Once you are there, scroll down to the second painting. One thing I see significant about this is that Padampa is on the Kagyü side of the painting, balanced off by Gelugpa monks on the other side. If this is indeed as it says a 15th-century painting, it makes even more sense to find Padampa on a thangka likely made in an emerging Gandenpa/Gelugpa context. And we are reminded that the First Dalai Lama (1391-1475) had a family background of Zhijé practitioners.

To analyze what you see here a little more, the white blanket being the only clothing loosely wrapped around the lowest part of the body, and the ankles-crossed/knees-up seating posture are both fairly secure diagnostic features of Padampa. The fact that he has ornaments on his otherwise unclothed torso and arms is frequent (its correctness is historically questionable if we rely on the earliest sources), but along with the flowers in his hair this might seem to point to (or indicate conflation with) the iconography of Virûpa. Still, I have no doubt it is Padampa who is depicted here.

The same painting also features in a 5-minute Asia Society video. I will try to embed it here, although if the embedding is unsuccessful you will see a jumble of letters and numbers that lead nowhere:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EVocNP7zgQw?si=rI7SRwl5VrFmk6AC" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you do not see the video here just above, scroll down to the end of this blog because it might be "embedded" there. If not, go to YouTube and use their search facility to search for the following title, using the quote marks around it:  

 

“A Closer Look at Tibetan Thangkas”

I just wanted to tag on this bit of artistic evidence that helps us to argue for popular knowledge of Padampa in the 15th century, as if any such argument were needed.

Perhaps yet more persuasive would be more literary sources quoting from “his” Tingrian Couplets. I do know of some.

Most relevent here and now is one couplet quoted in the 15th-century Sakya teacher Müchen Könchog Gyaltsen's (1388-1469) Supplement to the Oral Tradition, as contained in Thupten Jinpa, tr., Mind Training: The Great Collection, Wisdom (Boston 2006), at p. 483: 

The master Dampa states: 

“Contemplating the sufferings of samsara pierces my heart; 

People of Dingri, laugh not at these matters.”  

The Tibetan for it reads: 

rje dam pa'i zhal nas | 

'khor ba'i sdug bsngal bsam na snying rlung ldang || 

'di la gad mo mi bro d[i]ng ra ba ||

 

With nothing to say about the translation already given, except to say that it’s a great one, I still try my hand at it:

“At thought of the bad points* of sangsara my heart pressure rises.

Nothing to laugh and dance about here, my Tingrians.”

(*I follow the text of B108 by reading nyes-dmigs in place of sdug-bsngal.) 

What impresses me almost as much as its very serious message with so much confirming evidence in today’s world, is that this couplet is uniquely found in Kunga’s set (version B), number 108 of his 118 couplets. This does make the meditation manual’s  use of the Kunga set not quite unique, only nearly unique.

Turtle in a Bronze Basin

 

... the thoughts of a turtle are turtles ...

If you never kept a turtle as a pet, I don’t recommend it. First and most seriously they are difficult to care for unless you know what you are doing, and largely for this very reason are prone to die a young and untimely death. Another problem is that they often get sick and tired of that terrarium you’ve locked them up in and start scratching nonstop on the walls trying to get out. You wonder if they are just bored or nervous, or in need of a larger living room. The constant scraping noise can be so irritating you could scream and throw a lamp across the room.

But this blog is more about us humans than it is about the challenges of turtle care. Do you ever even imagine that effort itself could, in some circumstances, prove to be an insurmountable impediment to progress? Counterintuitive insight at its best! 

I’m convinced the metaphoric image of the turtle in the bronze basin will be subject of this blog. At least I will try. Wait for the future, as I suppose we have all been doing, and we’ll get there. My primary aim is to persuade you how crucial it is for us to better know in practical terms what futile efforts entail. If I can convince you of this my struggles will not have been in vain. At long last I will be able to give it a rest.*

(*I suppose my further subterranean aim would be to show that there are connections such as this to be seen in the pre-Mongol era between the Bon, Zhijé and Nyingma schools.)

In a selection from one of the primary texts of the early Zhijé tradition containing words of Padampa we once translated as Padampa’s Animal Kingdom, we find these words:

17.  Unable to go anywhere, the turtle in the bronze basin tires itself out.

འགྲོ་བར་མྱི་ནུས་མཁར་ཞོང་ནང་གི་རུལ་རྦལ་ཚི་ཆད་འགྱུར་།། — ZC vol. 1, p. 219.4.

 

The metaphor of the turtle in the bronze basin occurs at least twice in the Padampa Tanjur texts, but curiously in them the emphasis seems to be on how much the turtle in the bronze basin enjoys basking in the sun, and not on how thoroughly trapped it is.  The commentarial text explains Padampa’s precept and, as it often does, gives it an unexpected spin:

17.  “Unable to go...” — If you place a turtle in a bronze basin, it tries to climb out, but at the very first step it loses its footing. Likewise, no matter how high or low something may appear, the mind never moves from its empty nature.  It falls back on it.

འགྲོ་མྱི་ནུས་ཞེས་པ་ནི་། འཁར་གཞོང་དུ་རུ་རྦལ་བཅུག་ན་ཕྱིར་འཛེགས་ཀྱང་ཡང་དང་པོའི་ཤུལ་དུ་འདྲེད་ནས་འོང་། དེ་བཞིན་དུ་འཐོའ་དམན་ཇི་ལྟར་སྣང་ཡང་སེམས་ངོ་བོ་སྟོང་པ་ལས་འགྱུར་བ་མྱེད་དེ་། དེ་ཐོག་ཏུ་འབབས་གསུང་།  — ZC, vol. 1, p. 426.

 

Our concern at the moment, and the very thing that made me return again to this subject, is the single-folio Khyunglung fragment at pp. 142-145 (marked as fol. 3) in the published volume.*

(*For the bibliographical details, refer to the recent blogs on the Four Caches). 

 

At first glance I had thought it might be a Zhijé text, seeing the words meaning ‘From the mouth of Dampa’ (dam pa’i zhal nas) that seemed to suggest it, although it soon turned out to be an illusion. I tried searching in BDRC, and found no matches to the phrases I was trying to check. However, I tried again and found this parallel to the Khyunglung fragment in vol. 121 of The Much Expanded Version of the Oral Scriptures of the Earlier Translations (Snga-’gyur Bka’-ma Shin-tu Rgyas-pa, W1PD100944). In this instance BDRC e-text provides us with no page correspondences (and this is my good excuse for not providing page numbers), although this volume does seem to be a commentary on the Eighty Precepts (Zhal-gdams Brgyad-cu-pa) of Zurchung: 

le'u bdun pa / gdams pa bcu gsum gyi gdams ngag lag len gdams pa ni / gdams pa bcu gsum la / bsgrub pa'i brtson 'grus kyi lcag tu bdag gzhan gyi 'chi ba la brtag / nam mchi nges pa med pas tshe 'di yi bya bzhag thams cad bor thongs / gus pa khyad par can skye bar 'dod pas bla ma'i phyi nang gi yon tan la brtag / skyon rtog spongs / skyon du snang ba de rang snang ma dag pas lan / spyod pa kun dang mthun par 'dod pas gzhan gyi rtsol ba mi dgag / theg pa thams cad rang sa bden pas chos dang grub mtha'i kha 'dzin che / bla ma'i thugs zin pa mi 'gyur bar bya ba'i phyir nyams su len pa drag tu bya / yon tan ma lus pa rang la 'ong / dngos grub myur du thob par 'dod na sdom pa dam tshig ma nyams par bsrung / bsrung mtshams mtha' dag mi dge bcu dang dug lnga rang mtshan la slong bar 'du / chu bo bzhin bcad par.*

(*Compare this to the Khyunglung fragment starting at its folio 3 recto, line 7, and you will see despite all the variant readings that they are the same text all the same.)

I see, too, that Khyunglung, p. 144, line 5 ff. (or fol. 3 verso, line 5) corresponds to section 13 in the English of Zurchungpa’s Testament (its pp. 94-95). The ordering of sections doesn’t seem to be the same in the Khyunglung when compared to later editions of the “same” text. This indicates that a close textual study would be in order. At the moment I cannot safely argue for dependence of one text on the other. A comparative text edition ought to be made, perhaps you would like to give it a try? 

In any case, as you may have suspected by now the Zurchung Eighty does contain the turtle in the bronze basin metaphor even if it may not look like it in the English:

“Cut the stream of the arising of dualistic thoughts and the following after them, taking the example of a tortoise placed on a silver platter.”  (no. 28 on p. 164, see also pp. 292, 346)

I find the Tibetan of it in my physical print volume of the text entitled

Zur-chung Shes-rab-grags-pa'i Gdams-pa Brgyad-cu-pa, Pema Thinley, Sikkim National Press (Gangtok 1999), a booklet in 64 pages not listed in BDRC, at p. 26:

རུས་སྦལ་མཁར་གཞོང་དུ་བཅུག་པའི་དཔེས་མཚོན་ནས། མཚན་མའི་འབྱུང་འཇུག་རྒྱུན་བཅད། 

I go to the trouble to give the Tibetan to convince Tibetan readers that it really does speak of the turtle stuck in a bronze basin, and that the published English translation, as wonderful as it is, is in my estimation slightly off on this particular point. I myself originally wanted to translate brass basin, liking the sound of it, but really, it’s a superior type of brass alloy, and that means some more expensive kind of bronze or bell metal.

To complicate matters necessarily, we find the turtle in the bronze basin in a Bon Dzogchen text of the pre-Mongol era that would need to be brought into a fuller and more adequate discussion. The Bon text I have in mind is Seeing Awareness in its Nakedness (Rig-pa Gcer Mthong), IsIAO Tucci text no. 528, section DA, folio 2 verso, line 6. I would give a quotation, but I no longer have a access to the Tucci manuscript and would need to search it out in one of the published editions of the massive cycle that contains it.

This section DA, according to the published catalog 

Elena De Rossi Filibeck, Catalogue of the Tucci Tibetan Fund in the Library of the IsIAO, Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (Rome 2003), vol. 2, p. 296.

ought to be a 7-folio manuscript with the title Bsnyan-rgyud Gsal-bar Byed-pa'i Gsal-byed. I had thought I might have made a photo of the page, but no, to find it again I would have to fly back to Rome. That hardly seems likely to happen today. Anyway, I believe it ought to be locatable in a different published version of the cycle, so let me go over to BDRC and see what I can come up with. 

Well, I went there and came up with nothing, because the volume I’ll describe in a flash isn’t listed there:

Snyan-rgyud Gcer-Mthong, “Bonpo oral transmission precepts granted by Srid-pa-rgyal-mo to Bon-zhig Khyung-nag, reproduced from rare manuscript from Bsam-gling Monastery in Dol po,” Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1972).  

That’s a pity that BDRC didn’t scan it.* You might think I’m lucky to have a IASWR microfiche set that ought to include it, but then I don’t have any fiche reader available to me right now. 

(*Or didn’t scan it yet. Those 1960's-1980's Bon publications from India haven’t mostly been posted online, although they might be in the near future.)

Okay, now I think I can find it. As you may know the catalog of the Bon Katen goes with an index volume, 

Samten G. Karmay and Yasuhiko Nagano, eds., A Catalogue of the New Collection of Bonpo Katen Texts (Bon Studies 4), Senri Ethnological Reports series no. 24, National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka 2001).

and it locates the cycle of Seeing Awareness in Its Nakedness in volume 133 of the 300 (plus) volume set. That set is locatable with the title “Bon-gyi Bka’-brten” in BDRC as no. W30498, and its volume 133 is indeed scanned and made available there. What we find when we view the scans of vol. 133 is what looks very much like a photocopy of the 1972 publication listed above (absent only the added title page, and the Table of Contents that could have come in useful). A telltale sign is the Old Delhi style of the added Arabic numerals.* So we go back to the 1,692-page Osaka catalog and run through the titles it lists for vol. 133. Even if it isn’t exactly Gsal-bar Byed-pa’i Gsal-byed, we do see that part 15 (pp. 265-278, or 7 folios in length) has the title Snyan-rgyud Gsal-byed, which seems promising enough to have a look.

(*How can I tell?  It kind of looks like the numbers were applied with a rubber stamp.)

Could you hear the scratching?  A few hours have passed, and I wish I  could tell you that all those efforts had no result whatsoever. That would have made my point for me. But no, there it is on p. 269, line 4: ru[s] sbal mkhar gzhong du, or, turtle in a bronze basin. Have a look:

Of course, now we have the difficult task of understanding it in its special context, as part of a system of Dzogchen precepts. We’ve barely scratched the surface... Or... Perhaps we’ve scratched enough for one day. It may be time to give it a rest.

Originally from Buzzfeed, I linked it from here:
As you see this is a plastic, and not a bronze basin,
or the outcome would be different.

•

A poem by Emily Dickinson

has more of the “well turtle” or turtle-in-a-well in it, even if the turtle is disguised as a mole. The piece as a whole is usually taken to be about 19th-century disenchantment or, to put it in different words, our declining perception of the sacred dimensions of our existence.

1228

So much of Heaven has gone from Earth

That there must be a Heaven

If only to enclose the Saints

To Affidavit given.

The Missionary to the Mole

Must prove there is a Sky

Location doubtless he would plead

But what excuse have I?

Too much of Proof affronts Belief

The Turtle will not try

Unless you leave him - then return

And he has hauled away.

I’m fascinated how in the verse on the mole in a hole we easily perceive the well known Indic metaphor of the well turtle (he finds difficulty believing what he is told about the wider world beyond his ken), while the very next verse seems to have our turtle escaping from an unspecified container. Could she have gotten something from Emerson? But for her, okay, it is quite a different idea, the turtle only tries to get away when you aren’t looking. Then just disappears.

•

In John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, a turtle appears to be a symbol of the family’s struggle for freedom, but here the turtle is in a shirt pocket (or is he crossing the highway?) and not in any basin. And that family is trying to get out of the Dust Bowl where they had been trapped, rather than any metallic basin.

•

From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Natural History of Intellect:

What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of a rabbit, rabbits. But a man is broken and dissipated by the giddiness of his will ; he does not throw himself into his judgments ; his genius leads him one way but ’t is likely his trade or politics in quite another. He rows with one hand and with the other backs water, and does not give to any manner of life the strength of his constitution. Hence the perpetual loss of power and waste of human life. [emphasis added]

I like Emerson’s rowing metaphor that has the boat spinning in circles instead of going ahead. This happens to me a lot, although I hope you are kind enough not to notice.

•

The turtle in the bronze basin enjoys the light of the sun.  མཁར་གཞོང་ནང་གི་རུལ་སྦལ་ཉི་མའི་འོད་ལ་དགའ།  mkhar gzhong nang gi rul rbal [~rus sbal] nyi ma’i ’od la dga’.

— Zhijé Collection, vol. 1, p. 268, line 7. The same text is in the Derge Tanjur, no. 2445, with the title Phyag-rgya-chen-po Rin-po-che Brda’i Man-ngag.

•

There are some interesting narratives about direct encounters of the early Zur family lineage of the Nyingmapa with practitioners of Bön. For references to the main sources, see Matthew Kapstein, “From Metaphor to Commentary and from Commentary to Catechism: The Formation of a Bon po Scriptural Corpus and Its Authentication,” contained in: Jonathan Silk and Leonard van der Kuijp, eds., From Khyung-lung to Lhasa [=Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines, no. 64, July 2022], pp. 290-306, at p. 291, footnote 4.

•

Note: Today’s blog was already promised in an earlier one: https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2024/03/recovered-connections-1-four-caches.html.

•

If you have the time to spare, and need some Zen, search the internet for "the goose in the bottle." Use the quote marks in your search for better results, or just do nothing and sit there.

•

For a response to this blog by Jean-Luc Achard, look here (by clicking on this sentence!).

Internal Conversation, Discursive Thinking, Troubling Thoughts

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 7, Episode 6 — Phantasms

Internal conversation, discursive thinking and troubling thoughts. All three are practical synonyms for something that keeps going on when you sit down to try, with all the goodwill in the world, to meditate. Trying to turn them off unleashes the inevitable flood. Seeing the flood inspires frustration, and frustration can give way to surrender. 

Understanding what namtok (རྣམ་རྟོག) is is something you can only come to when you try to practice meditative concentration. And meditative concentration, I think needless to say, isn’t something you can approach by constructive logical steps, logical steps being another of the many things we label with the word thinking without giving the matter much thought. Well, without giving enough thought to what thinking is or can be. And logical thinking, as good as it surely is for us a lot of the time, is just too often too much like rationalizing what is anything but rational to begin with. We seem to have an endless supply of excuses for ourselves.

Allowing namtok to fuel your anguish, any efforts to force your thoughts to slow down or stop will be kind of like thrusting your hand in the water in an attempt to make the fish stop swimming. A better approach might be to sit still and let the fish flow by at their own speed. Instead of being troubled by them, it may be possible to settle into a mood of mutual relaxation. Then the superior kind of tokpa* might have a chance. Let's translate tokpa as deeper or fuller understanding, in a word, realization. We may suppose it’s why you wanted to meditate to begin with.

(*རྟོགས་པ་ rather than the cognitive-conceptual generalities called རྟོག་པ་. That silent ‘s’ [ས] makes a world of difference.)

As it is for most people nervously approaching medical or dental treatments as they sit in the waiting room, this kind of practice can be quite effective. Imagine the thoughts that seem to get in your way are fish in the aquarium.* Those fish tend to settle down after you stop tapping the glass and instead settle down in your seat. And the more you gaze at their movements the less disturbed you are by them, you might even be able to look past them. You don’t push them, they don’t push you to do all those things you’d regret doing. There’s nothing to get hung about, but you’re not hanging up on your heart, either. It’s rude to hang up in the middle of a conversation.

(*Waiting rooms often have fish tanks, and for a reason.)

° ° °

As I started out learning Tibetan in the early ’70’s, I used to somewhat jokingly translate namtog (རྣམ་རྟོག or རྣམ་པར་རྟོག་པ་) as psychic whirligigs.* Not sure that translation has quite the right spin even if I thought it had the right ring. Trains of thought tend to circle back along the same old tracks, so repetitive, even up to the point of becoming obsessive-compulsive (all the more so the more we are blind to it). Ruts are good for what? Still think my amusing translation was in the right spirit: Lots of spinning motion, no significant progress. We’ll talk about bagged cats (བག་ཆགས་) another time.

(*It’s a challenge to come up with a translation for namtok that covers every instance of its usage. It can range from superstition to vain imagining to doubt and hesitation, not to mention anxiety... As normal as it is for us to engage in it moment after moment for as long as we shall live, this mental activity is regarded by Tibetan Buddhists as one that engages in its objects with varying doses of attachment, attachment premised on conventional subject-object dualism... It gets in the way of truly seeing until it doesn’t.)

 

•

At the time the initial sense of abiding occurs,

interfering thoughts come up one after the other

as if they were rolling down a steep mountainside.

The thought occurs that perhaps this is no meditative experience at all,

but this sensing of the amount of interfering thoughts that occur

means that the perceptions have somewhat settled down.

Before, when there was no settling down at all,

the interfering thoughts erupted as they pleased

and even the fact that they run on was not recognized.

Then, like a slowly descending stream,

the perceptions slow down and the troubled thoughts become few.

Finally, like the depths of the ocean,

the perception stabilizes and remains immobile.

Then the meditative experiences occur.

One experiences a bliss, untroubled by thoughts and clear

like the center of unbroken space.

Like a butterlamp that does not flicker in the wind,

one’s own clarity, one’s own awareness, is undistracted.

Like a beautiful flower in a rainfall

it stands out with a shining clear presence against the ground.

Like the sun shining in a cloudless sky,

nothing comes in the way of its smooth transparency.

It is, like a bronze bowl full of water,

transparent within and without.

There will never be a word for such an experience.

It dawns without reason like dreams do.

 

•

གནས་པ་དང་པོ་བྱུང་དུས་སུ།།

རི་གཟར་ལོགས་ལ་རྦབ་འདྲིལ་བཞིན།།

རྣམ་རྟོག་ཟམ་མ་ཆད་པར་ལྡང་།།

བསྒོམ་ཉམས་མེད་དམ་སྙམ་པ་འོང་།།

རྣམ་རྟོག་བྱུང་ཚད་ཚོར་བ་དེ།།

ཤེས་པ་ཅུང་ཟད་གནས་པ་ཡིན།།

གནས་པ་མེད་པའི་གོང་རོལ་དུ།།

རྣམ་རྟོག་རང་དགར་ཤོར་བ་ཡིས།།

རྟོག་པ་འགྱུས་ཀྱང་ངོ་མ་ཤེས།།

དེ་ནས་དལ་འབབ་ཆུ་བོ་བཞིན།།

ཤེས་པ་དལ་ཞིང་རྣམ་རྟོག་ཉུང་།།

ཐ་མས་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་གཏིང་བཞིན་དུ།།

ཤེས་པ་མི་གཡོ་བརྟན་པར་གནས།།

དེ་ནས་ཉམས་སུ་མྱོང་བ་འཆར།།

བར་སྣང་དག་པའི་དཀྱིལ་ལྟ་བུར།།

གསལ་ལ་མི་རྟོག་བདེ་བར་མྱོང་།།

མར་མེ་རླུང་གིས་མི་སྐྱོད་བཞིན།།

རང་རིག་རང་གསལ་ཡེངས་པ་མེད།།

མེ་ཏོག་མཛེས་ལ་ཆར་བབ་བཞིན།།

ས་ལ་ཧྲིག་གེ་ཡལ་ལེ་བ།།

སྤྲིན་མེད་མཁའ་ལ་ཉི་ཤར་བཞིན།།

སིང་ངེ་ཆ་ལེ་དངོས་པོ་མེད།།

འཁར་ཕོར་ཆུ་ཡིས་བཀང་བ་བཞིན།།

ཕྱི་ནང་མེད་པར་སེང་ངེ་བ།།

དེ་འདྲའི་མིང་ལ་ཐུག་པ་མེད།།

གཞི་མེད་རྨི་ལམ་ལྟ་བུར་འཆར།།

• “A Twelfth-Century Tibetan Classic of Mahāmudrā, The Path of Ultimate Profundity: The Great Seal Instructions of Zhang.”  Chapter Six.

Leeches & Prapañcas

Yes, I know, it's not a leech.  It's a centipede.  Wondering why?  OK, keep wondering.

In the comments section there was a discussion on the subject of metaphor no. 2 of Padampa's Root Text.  I have now changed my translation, following Early Tibet's correction, to read as follows:

The leech, satiated with blood, doesn't go after meat that is in the water.

The Commentary on no. 2 reads (also changed slightly, adding the words in blue):

Leech — The worm known as the leech is found in narrow places in swamps all over Mon and India. It drinks the blood it sucks from the feet of humans. Until it has had its fill, even if you pull on it you can't remove it. Then it's exhausted, and won't even go after meat that's [been placed] in the water. Likewise when you have ceased the outflows (prapañca) of a mind that has cultivated learning, reflection and meditation, a sense of ease appears.

I believe this is a good instance of how the Tibetan commentator sometimes doesn't exactly give a straightforward interpretation of Padampa's intended meanings.  In his last sentence he does at least supply what looks like it would be an essential clue.  It has to do with those things that I hastily (and, I admit it, badly) translated as 'outflows,' the prapañcas (Tibetan spros-pa).

Perhaps the most popular way to English prapañca is 'conceptual diffusion,' although I don't suppose this will provoke much resonance in most people's minds.  Perhaps that's why I've always been scouting for another way to render it.  I once asked a good Shaivite friend in Nepal what it meant, and was surprised to hear an explanation that generally jibed with what I had largely intuited from Tibetan Buddhist sources.  I don't remember his exact wording, but he told me that it's a function of the mind that ventures out into the world and pushes one thing this way, tucks another thing that way, until the 'world' (or more to the point the individual's perception of the same) better conforms to the person's mentality.

I hope no one will take my word alone for what prapañca means.*** There are basically two writings in existence that I believe cast a significant amount of light on this perplexing Indian idea as it is used in Buddhist sources. One is a 4-page essay by P. D. Premasiri,* which is limited to Pâli sources. The other is an article by Karen Lang.** She ranges over all kinds of Indian sources, including Vedic scriptures, Jain texts, and particularly Pâli scriptures and commentaries (Vedântic treatises and Madhyamaka classics surface only briefly at the end). Like the Tibetan commentator, I don't mean to force upon anyone a particular understanding of how the leech (or the things the leech does) & the prapañca might be analogous, but I imagine that if you were to read these two articles carefully some sense might just pop up like all of a sudden. I'll just hand you a couple of quotes that might hint at what it's about.

Lang nicely summarizes in her introduction the practical meditation concerns within which the term prapañca operates:

"Several Indian religious works... use the expression prapañca (Pâli papañca) to refer to the world perceived and constructed as the result of disturbed mental states.  In order to calm this unquiet world, these works advocate meditative practices that staunch the flow of normal sensory experience."

Even more nicely, Lang says:

"[T]he Buddha, when asked how to realize nibbâna, responded that one must cut off the root of what is called conceptual proliferation, namely the thought "I am" and by remaining mindful control whatever internal desires he has.  In this way, one achieves the goal of inner calm."

And if I may quote from the summary at the end of Premasiri's essay:

"[I]t [papañca] may be interpreted as a psychological term that signifies the internal sub-vocal chatter that goes on in the mind using the prolific conceptual constructions based on sense perception.  This internal chatter feeds and is fed by unwholesome emotions such as craving, conceit and dogmatism and produces the tensions, anxieties and dogmatism that produce the tensions, anxieties and sorrows of the individual. The overt expression of this psychological condition is witnessed in the conflicts and disputes that manifest in society.**** Papañca may be understood as the psychological turmoil to which a person becomes a victim due to the lack of awareness and insight into the realities of the sensory process to which all beings constituted of a psychophysical organism are exposed."

Prapañcas are closely intertangled with conceptual thinking (vitarka, rtog-pa) — both are also intertangled with sense perceptions — but, unlike conceptual thinking, they have an apparently 'outward' interfering function (mind you, they don't really go anywhere). They are driven by irrational cravings, selfish conceit and inflexible views. They in turn result in both individual mental disturbances and social miseries, the latter particularly including conflicts with other people.  Clear?  Hmm. Let me give it one final shot, if you will permit me.

Narcissism as a world-distorting mechanism?

Imagine a big ball of fluffy white cotton appears right there in front of you on your desk. I'm not sure it really is cotton, or anything else for that matter, but it sure looks like it is. It just sits there and you're not sure what to do with it, but somehow it must be dealt with, so you start poking it with a finger from one side and then the other. Getting impatient with this game you take it in both hands. You do your best to stuff the whole thing inside a desk divider or it gets compacted into one big block inside your pencil box. Then you pull it out of the square or round pencil box and it seems to keep the shape of the box, but you pull at it from one side and then the other and it starts to fluff out, but you keep going until little wisps of cotton are decorating your whole room. You pull some of the wisps back together and make little balls and try to bounce them around. Perhaps you try to restore the complete ball, but this ends in frustration.

Now it's necessary to partly deconstruct the analogy.  Just think to yourself that it wasn't your fingers doing all that stuff to the cotton ball. It was your mind in its usual self-cherishing (or egocentric, or narcissistic) condition. And the cotton ball was the world as you perceive it. And you're not normally the least bit aware of it, let alone in control. There you go. I tried. Now you have a mental image — perhaps a useful one, I'm not sure of it — of prapañcas.  But bear in mind that I just made it up to suit myself...  Doing what I do best, making a mess of things.  Confabulating.

†  †  †

The Tibetan text of the commentary (there is only one witness, the one in the Zhijé Collection, vol. 1, p. 432) reads like this:

pad pas zhes bya ba ni / srin bu pad pas bya ba mon nam rgya gar kun na 'dam rdzab kyi gseb na yod par 'dug / /  de myi'i [r]kang pa la khrag 'jib pa'i 'thung bar byed de / ma ngoms par [~bar] du then kyang myi thon pa yin par 'dug / kho rang kho dag chad pa dang chu'i nang nas [~na] sha'i phyi[r] myi 'breng gsung / de bzhin du thos bsam sgom gsum gyi[s?] blo'i spros pa chod nas dal ba'i nyams 'char ro gsung.

**Karen Lang, Meditation as a Tool for Deconstructing the Phenomenal World, contained in: Tadeusz Skorupski & Ulrich Pagel, eds., The Buddhist Forum, Volume III, 1991-1993: Papers in Honour and Appreciation of Professor David Seyfort Ruegg's Contribution to Indological, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (London 1994), pp. 143-159.

*P.D. Premasiri, Papañca, contained in: W.G. Weeraratne, ed., Encyclopedia of Buddhism, vol. 7, Fascicle 2, Government of Sri Lanka (Colombo 2004), pp. 299-303. This important reference work, decades in the making, unfortunately may be hard to locate.  The most likely place is the reference section of a large research library.

****"I heard David Chase [the director] say one time that it's about people who lie to themselves, as we all do. Lying to ourselves on a daily basis and the mess it creates."

— James Gandolfini, the actor who plays Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, interviewed in Rolling Stone in March 2001. Watch this television series with care and you might see and reflect how people can be both true to [what they regard as] themselves and constantly telling lies. (Tony even exploits his sessions with his analyst in order to justify and rationalize to himself doing the [evil] things he would have done anyway, making her complicit in his criminality rather than bettering himself as a human being.) An interesting example of art as metaphor for life, for how art works, and for how art works on us. For this quote and more, look here.

***If you would like to know other ways of defining prapañca, try this short one at Wikipedia or this longer one at Buddhist Door.  You might also want to try here and scroll down to part "a" of section "3."  

For an introduction to the problem of the relationship between psychology and Buddhism (an essential therapy for those who think their concerns are identical written by someone with excellent background in their two cultures), see Luis O. Gómez, Psychology, contained in: Robert E. Buswell Jr., ed., Encyclopedia of Buddhism, MacMillan Reference USA (NY 2004), pp. 678-692.

If you're into comparative linguistics and you actually do give a fig about how to say 'leech' in other Tibeto-Burman languages, link this PDF article by James Matisoff, and then scroll down to page 150.  You'll see that the Monpa for 'leech' is pat-pa, which is closest to the Written Tibetan form pad-pa (and I see this as evidence that the sometimes encountered WT form padma [Skt. 'lotus'] is an ignorant 'correction'... Or should I say an unnecessary correction?  An incorrect correction?  Umm. You know what I mean).

"The Sanskrit term prapañca has a root that connotes multiplicity, variation, etc. As it is used in Buddhist psychology and philosophy of mind, it denotes the mind’s tendency to create ideas and experiences that have nothing to do with reality, to spin out of control, to fantasize, to superimpose its own fantasies on reality. We have chosen to translate this as fabrication, which does a good job of capturing the core idea of creating a falsehood, of making things up."

— Jay Garfield

phyi yi spros pa rang gi sems la bsdus ||

'khyag rom chu ru zhu'o ding ri ba ||

The conceptual elaboration of your external world is subsumed in your own mind.

Frozen blocks of ice melt into water, my Tingrians.

— Padampa Sanggyé