THE BRILLIANCE OF NAKED MIND
SECRET VISIONS
OF
GESAR, KING OF LING
DOUGLAS J. PENICK
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 Douglas Penick
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Published by Mountain Treasury Press
CONTENTS
I DEEDS AND VISIONS OF GESAR OF LING:
GESAR’S CONQUEST OF SATHAM OF JANG
Chapter I.2 AN INVOCATION TO TILOPA
Chapter I.3 THE LIFE OF KUKKURIPA
Chapter I.4 THE LIFE OF MEHKHALA AND KANKHALA
Chapter I.5 THE LIFE OF KING INDRABHUTI
Chapter I.6 SONGS OF ABANDONMENT
II VISIONS AND SONGS OF GESAR OF LING:
THE LEGACY OF THE RULERS OF SHAMBHALA
Chapter II.1 THE COSMIC MIRROR
Chapter II.2 THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF THE LORDS OF KALAPA: THE KINGDOM OF SHAMBHALA
Chapter II.4.1 DHARMA RAJAH SUCANDRA
Chapter II.4.2 DHARMA RAJAH SURSSVARA
Chapter II.4.3 DHARMA RAJAH TEJIN
Chapter II.4.4 DHARMA RAJAH SOMADATTA
Chapter II.4.5 DHARMA RAJAH SURESVARA II
Chapter II.4.6 DHARMA RAJAH VISVAMURTI
Chapter II.4.7 DHARMA RAJAH SURESANA
Chapter II.4.8 DHARMA RAJAH & FIRST RIGDEN MANJUSRIKIRTI-YASAS
Chapter II.4.9 RIGDEN PUNDARIKA
Chapter II.4.12 RIGDEN SUMITRA
Chapter II.4.13 RIGDEN RAKTAPANI
Chapter II.4.14 RIGDEN VISNAGUPTA
Chapter II.4.15 RIGDEN ARKAKIRTI
Chapter II.4.16 RIGDEN SUBHADRA
Chapter II.4.17 RIGDEN SAMUDRAVIJAYA
Chapter II.4.20 RIGDEN VISVARUPA
Chapter II.4.21 RIGDEN SASIPRABHA
Chapter II.4.23 RIGDEN MAHIPALA
Chapter II.4.24 RIGDEN SRIPALA
Chapter II.4.26 RIGDEN VIKRAMA
Chapter II.4.27 RIGDEN MAHABALA
Chapter II.4.28 RIGDEN ANIRUDDHA
Chapter II.4.29 RIGDEN NARISIMHA
Chapter II.4.30 RIGDEN MAHESVARA
Chapter II.4.31 RIGDEN ANANTAVIJAYA
Chapter II.4.32 RIGDEN RAUDRACAKRIN
Chapter II.5 THE TIME OF KALAPA
Chapter II.6 THE RED GARUDA'S SONG OF CONTINUING
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Throughout what follows, the writings, oral instructions and all-pervasive presence of Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, the Sakyong, the Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong remain the continuing ground, reference and inspiration.
In many, many places, the profound instruction of His Holiness, Orgyen Kusum Lingpa has left his deep imprint.
The advice and encouragement of the Venerable Tulku Thondup, the late Peter Lieberson, Kidder Smith, Kenneth Green, Joan Anderson, David Warren, Larry Mermelstein, the late Robin Kornman, Karen Hayward, Blake Thompson, Michael Root, Meg Federico, Francesca Fremantle and Helen Berliner have been ever invaluable and unstinting. Important elements of the text would not exist without the tenacity, brilliance, and generosity of Ives Waldo from whose translations many passages are cited and others adapted.
I’d like to thank all of you who are companions on this journey and in this world. This book would not be in your hands without the love, support and hard work of Deborah Marshall.
D.J.P.
Boulder, Colorado
11/05/2011
There is a powerful strand in European thinking that ties knowledge to loss. There is an unbridgeable divide between the physical world, the world of the senses and knowledge. According to this view, understanding, knowledge, wisdom only come into being when the object of that understanding is disappearing or has disappeared.
In this outlook, words come into existence only to signify the absence of their referent. After all, when Itard set out to teach language to the mute wild boy of Aveyron, he taught him the word for milk by taking it away from him. Little wonder then that the child did not learn to speak. He did not wish to be deprived of more. The only other words he learned were “Oh God”!
Theology is a study that arose when God no longer walked with Abraham in the cool of the evening. Petrarch’s sonnets arose from the absence of Laura. Dante’s divine cosmos radiated from the absence of Beatrice. Folk songs and tales were collected and studied when folk singers and storytellers began to disappear. Anthropology came to exist when the people who were the objects of its study were becoming extinct. The various studies related to ecology now arise as the balance of the natural world appears irretrievably out of kilter.
Our knowledge, both in a scientific and poetic way, seems contingent on loss and absence, and our relationship to the experience of knowing is impoverished and constricted accordingly. We are only prepared for the kind of knowing that emerges when, as Hegel famously put it, “Athena’s owl only flies at dusk.”
In what follows, knowledge, understanding and wisdom pervade the total range of phenomena, arise in the simplicity of the present moment, and expand in continuous and uncontrolled profusion; here wisdom and utter wakefulness have never been separate and remain an endless terrain of ardent exploration. Only a lack of courage and a failure of love can make the world otherwise!
OF GESAR, KING OF LING
KING GESAR’S CONQUEST OF THE DEMON LORD, SATHAM OF JANG
BATTLE VISIONS
1
Gesar of Ling, the World Renowned Liberator, the Indestructible Conqueror, the Quintessential Hero, the Lord of Warriors and Destroyer of Demons, was sent from the summit of the sky to Tibet, the land of snows, in order to end the domination of the demon kings of the four directions.
After hard won victories over Lutzen, Demon of the North and the Eastern Lords of Hor, he proceeds to do battle with Satham of Jang, Invincible Demon King of the South. Satham is consumed with pride in all he owns and seeks only to expand his realms of pleasure and delight. He enslaves his subjects, dazzling them with promises of extravagant possessions and endless pleasure. He dazzles them with his great beauty, his imperious self-esteem, his luxury and the radiance of his immense golden body which is invulnerable to any attack.
Even the All Victorious Lion Lord’s magic crystal sword or lightening-like arrows of meteoric iron cannot pierce the skin of the Demon Lord of Jang. But Gesar devises a lethal ruse. He transforms himself into a flying insect, a small iron bee with razor-edged wings of steel. Then, early one evening as King Satham is indulging in yet another lavish feast amid his generals, followers and family, he raises a toast with a great golden cup of wine. And he slakes his thirst with one huge gulp. Gesar, now a murderous bee, flies into the demon’s mouth and down his throat. Then, as he veers hither and yon through Satham’s insides, the blades of his wings nick and slice at Satham’s lungs, stomach, liver, intestines, kidneys, nerves, arteries and heart. Bit by bit he shreds the demon’s insides to ribbons. Surrounded by his helpless courtiers and bodyguards, the Demon King hurls himself on the ground, screaming, rolling back and forth. Writhing and howling like a beast, finally he dies in utter agony.
Satham of Jang’s enormous body lies still on the ground like a heap of boulders from a collapsed fortress. His family, friends, soldiers and courtiers stand there frozen; they cannot believe what they are seeing. Then, emerging at the Demon Lord’s eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and at the creases of his joints, appearing first as small yellow tongues of flame then as larger orange waves of fire, crackling and snapping, a conflagration emerges and sweeps over the huge corpse. Soon, Satham of Jang has become his own enormous funeral pyre.
From the crown of the demon’s head, unseen by anyone, Gesar emerges from the crown of the demon’s burning skull.. He has transformed himself into a shimmering ruby-colored fly and flies through the air like an ember. Satham’s spirit, now in the form of a shiny onyx-colored fly, follows Gesar and flies off into the smoke.
Then Gesar returns to his accustomed form. Atop his robes of red brocade, he wears gold armor the color of the sun and a crystal helmet that glows like the moon. The white silk banners atop his helmet snap in the wind. He carries his sword, his bow of antelope horn, and in his snow-leopard quiver, his arrows of meteoric iron. For him, no more than a second has passed within the demon’s body.
As Satham of Jang’s downcast subjects gape, he leaps into the turquoise saddle of his horse of miracles, Kyang Ko Kar Kar. Horse and rider fly up into the blue cloudless sky, where they seem to fuse and became an enormous golden garuda. To a commanding melody, they sing this song:
I, Gesar, the self-born Garuda,
Fly through the pure air of a cool sky,
Open beyond measurement or memory,
And its bright crystal winds pour directly
Through the chambers of my heart.
So, though joyful, the warriors of Ling find the memory of this song haunting as they follow their lord and return home to the Kingdom of Ling.
2
This is the outer story of how Gesar, King of Ling, Indestructible Warrior and Destroyer of Demons defeated the Demon Lord of the South, Satham King of Jang. For a thousand years, men and women have told this story. Some have then written it down, while by others it has been chanted, sung, danced, and acted out. Thus it is famous in every culture throughout the mountains, valleys, plains, and steppes of central Asia.
But there is an inner story of this epic conquest, a secret account, and it is far more strange and unsettling. Here Gesar experienced not just a single great encounter but innumerable encounters. The inner story of Gesar’s conquest of Satham of Jang comprises so many tales that Gesar himself could later recall only a relatively small number. Indeed he was or is unsure whether he was or is still experiencing them. However, even if many of Gesar’s adventures in the great body of Satham of Jang have become blurred, he has been able to bring back some longer accounts of great spiritual masters and enlightened rulers. How this has come to pass is as follows.
Having assumed the form a small iron bee with furious wings of razor steel, King Gesar waits until the Demon Lord opens his mouth wide. Then, quick as an arrow, he darts into Satham of Jang’s cavernous mouth. He streaks past the sharp bronze teeth, and is, sucked in deeper by the demon’s gasping breath. Bobbing above the descending purple waves of wine, he hurtles down through the coal black throat. As he presses forward, he slices little holes in the demon’s throat. Satham grunts in pain, but thinks it is merely some passing irritation. Then Gesar begins to move though the demon’s innards in deadly earnest. He nips and slices at organs, cavities and tendons. Satham now roars in pain. His whole body vibrates like the meeting of two huge cymbals, crushing Gesar until he passes out.
The Great Destroyer of Demons now falls down and down until he crashes to the floor in the depth of the Satham’s body.
When he wakes, he finds himself in a vast space filled with dazzling light. Gesar shakes his head and stares in amazement. He has no idea where he is. In front of him is a huge glass tower extending up and up, becoming increasingly brighter at its height. Beyond is a glassy sky of blazing rainbow light, and beneath Gesar’s feet is an expanse of dark red glass.
Gesar finds himself lying on a couch of lavender glass; ten chairs of emerald glass and a pink glass table stood nearby. On the table is a black glass tea-pot, a lemon-colored tea bowl and a turquoise glass bell. There are seven red glass windows in the surrounding walls.
Gesar is dazed and puzzled. It takes him some time to realize that all around him the glittering walls are actually made of hundreds of millions of mirrors, mirrors of every size and shape. Ranging up the walls one above the other, they reflect each other’s light back and forth, and their light becomes ever more intense. Some of the mirrors nearest Gesar are immense, others are tiny, some are square, others round, still others are as irregular as rain puddles. Some are very old, while others are of a manufacture that can only be imagined as coming from a future. Some are perfect, some are cracked. Some seem to stare at Gesar as if they were alive, while others loom like holes that open onto empty space.
And these are not ordinary mirrors; each bears a label to indicate its special nature. Gesar looks around and sees the Heavenly Emperor Mirror with its gold tiger hook; he sees the White Jade Heart Mirror, the Mirror that is Archer Li, the Blossom Mirror, the Mirror of Torture, the Wind Mirror, and the Self-Doubt Mirror. He sees the Mirror of Man and Woman, the Mirror of Birds, the Mirror of Melody, the Corpse Mirror, the Mirror of Water, The Ice Terrace Mirror, the Mirror of Lust, the Mountain Mirror, the Iron Mask Mirror, the Mirror of Deceit, the Mirror of Me, the Mirror of the Moon, the Mirror in the Shape of the Yong Le Emperor, the Mirror that is Seven Vanished Nations, the Mirror of a Princess pining for a Prince, the Stillness Mirror, the Mirror of Warfare, the Mirror of Nothingness, the Mirror of Bitter Sorrow. He sees the Mirror of the Hangman’s Noose, the Mirror of Crushing Fists, the Mirror of Repetition, the Mirror of Saliva, the Mirror with No Words, the Mirror that Holds Back Reflections, the Mirror that is the First Concubine of Emperor Hsuan-yuan, the One Smile Mirror, the Mirror of Rape, the Mirror that is Rice Farmer Chen, the Pillow Mirror, the No-Reflection Mirror, the Flying Mirror, the Horse Mirror, The Mirror of Milk, the Mirror of Perfume. These are only the first mirrors which King Gesar sees within the magical body of King Satham of Jang.
And when he looks into these mirrors, Gesar does not see himself. When merely he glances in one of these mirrors, Gesar enters a completely different world. The world within each mirror has a different sky, different rivers and seas, different plants, suns, moons, stars, animals, cities, men and women. Some are bygone worlds; some are alternate versions of the present and some are unknown futures. Some mirrors show worlds with different physical laws, different customs and different forms of cause and effect. Some worlds are even without light or sun or solidity or space or any movement or thought or emotion. Some are beautiful beyond imagining, others are hells so vile one shrinks to think of them.
And in each of these innumerable new worlds, though Gesar sometimes is someone almost exactly like himself, in others he finds himself to be a new and unimaginable being. He becomes one who is intelligent, stupid, warm, cold, weak, strong, male, female or something in between or both at once or neither at all; sometimes he is human, sometimes a god, hell-being, ghost or beast. He meets gods, warriors, noblewomen, scoundrels, gurus, courtesans, murderers, vagrants, pilgrims, housewives, children, animals, beings of every kind. Sometimes he is an inanimate object and his life, lasting from creation to destruction, is that of a crystal goblet.
In every world, what he must know, must believe, what he must cultivate as wisdom or love, what he must recognize as crime, degradation or virtue, and what he can actually experience as happiness or misery, all are utterly unfamiliar and must be learned anew, if he can learn at all. In some realms, he receives profound, world-altering teachings that he forgets immediately. In others, he has insights that he struggles to retain. But in the torrential succession of experiences, nothing, or almost nothing remains. Gesar glances into each mirror and takes such a new form, he experiences a whole entire life as a new being in a new world from beginning to end; in whatever dramas and struggles that world presents, he lives it out from birth to death.
In uncontrollable frenzy, Gesar flies in and out of mirror after mirror. He is like an insect that must rush from flower to flower to sustain itself. Some worlds seem to last only as long as a caress or the sound of a single note. In other realms, it seems that movement is as slow as the changes in a great mountain range. But he cannot make things go more quickly and he cannot stop to find rest. Worlds begin to blur and blend; only realms that resemble his own original time make the slightest fleeting imprint. His mind becomes nothing but a racing silence or a roaring motionless expanse.
He continues spinning through endless worlds and endless selves. Like a golden bolt of lightning, he flashes from mirror world to mirror world. And each time he enters a world, takes form and dies there, that world dies too; the mirror through which he entered it is shattered. Thus one by one, but at the speed of light, Gesar is destroying every cell in the terrible and wondrous being called Satham of Jang.
So, beginning at the bottom of his torso and rising through his bowels, his stomach his liver and heart and finally to his brain, the Demon King’s inner organs desiccate and collapse. At the same time, friction from incessant movement causes the iron bee that is Gesar to become hotter and hotter until he glows like a branding iron. As he passes through King Satham’s body, everything he brushes past begins to smolder and catch fire. As he reaches the apex of the demon’s skull, the world around him smokes and burns. When finally he escapes through a crack in the Demon King’s skull, he hears the faint buzzing of a small black fly following. This insect, the carrion essence of all that once was Satham of Jang disappears in the smoke.
For a few moments or possibly much longer, Gesar is not sure what world he has now entered. He is not certain that he has returned to his true home world. The sky seems not quite so high or bright, the grass seems a different shade of green. When he sees the Miracle Horse, Kyang Ko Kar Kar waiting for him, his steed seems slightly different; the way he shifts his weight is not quite the same. And when Gesar resumes his accustomed guise, his armor seems heavier, his helmet tighter; his weapons have a slightly different balance. He wonders if indeed he has entered a slightly different realm. And he realizes that there is no way that he will ever know.
Gesar, Lion King of Ling, Destroyer of the Demons, The Peerless Warrior has no choice. He leaps into the turquoise saddle of his horse of miracles, Kyang Ko Kar Kar. The two fly up into the pale blue cloudless sky, where they seem to fuse. They become an enormous golden garuda, floating on immense vulture-like wings in the center of the sky. Then Gesar sings this song:
Not relying on anything,
Not prolonging anything,
Not hastening anything to its end:
Here the dramas of life swell and resolve without a trace
As a rainbow pulsing in the sky.
The great heart-beat of experience shimmers
As the tints of color in this arc of light.
On such magical sky bridges do men and women,
Demons, and gods wander and play out
Their poignant deeds of hope and fear.
I, Gesar, the self-born Garuda,
Fly through the pure air of an endless sky,
Open beyond measurement or memory,
And its bright crystal winds pour directly
Through the chambers of my heart.
The warriors of Ling are haunted by this song as they follow their lord and return home to the Kingdom of Ling.
3
When Gesar has returned to Ling, he sits on his throne and wears the golden robe that commemorates his triumph over Satham of Jang. Now he feels millions upon millions of other worlds nearby and myriad other Gesar beings very much alive. He feels that in every instant, with each blink of an eye or turn of his head, he shifts slightly from one world to another. When he sleeps, he feels he is living out other fates in other realms. Every world he passes through calls forth waves of his love and his devotion, but there is no certainty or substance. His victories over demonic obsession, for all their courage, pain and sacrifice, will never bring a sure conclusion.
Gesar does not know if the heroes he believes in exist or ever existed in this world, whether their stories are or ever were true here, or whether they will later find a world where they may yet be true. He does not know if he heard accounts of renowned mahasiddhas in his dreams. He does not know why he would find descriptions of the rulers of Shambhala familiar. Nonetheless, he writes them down as he might write a wistful love poem to a woman he knew by name only.
What follows now are an invocation to Tilopa, the life stories of Kukkuripa, Kankala and Mehkala, King Indrabhuti, and an account of the rulers of Shambhala.
AN INVOCATION TO TILOPA
Gesar finds himself in the Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini Grove.
He sees the Buddha’s mother, leaning against a tree, about to give birth. He sees everything in this universe reflected in the abdomen of Queen Maya. As is said:
“Then from every one of her hair-pores, in all these worlds, emerge visions of all the past lives and future lives of the Awakened One, as he appeared and will appear in every universe, world, land, and place; all appear just as sun, moon, stars, planets and clouds are reflected in a lake, a piece of gold, a mirror, or in a crystal bowl of water.
“Even as these self-expanding waves of life penetrate Gesar, King of Ling, a charnel ground yogi gives him this invocation and feast offering.”
THE STREAM OF SELF-EXISTING FIRE:
A GURU YOGA FEAST INVOKING
THE LIFE FORCE OF LINEAGE,
THE DEATHLESS TILOPA
1
Gathered here in the charnel ground of all phenomena
Surrounded by the corpses of rotting hopes, false assumptions,
Decaying love, possessions that will soon be stolen away;
Sitting amidst the ashes of dreams and secret ambitions,
The air is choked with the smoke of ignorance
That renders all around us almost invisible;
Here we are paralyzed by the winds of hope and fear
As predatory ghosts of uncertainty, doubt, and anguish swirl about.
Confessing our myriad delusions,
O Tilopa,
We look for you, the fount of lineage,
The father of refuge.
Aspiring to see the living face of enlightenment
In the darkness of this world,
We call on you.
2
Now, on this powerless ground of utter futility,
Arise from the eternal womb of emptiness,
Telo come here in this very place
Come here and display the Vajra Dance
Utterly consume this Vajra Feast.
In consuming the offering of food,
Display the living body of reality.
In accepting the offering of song,
Display the living speech of reality.
In consuming the offering of amrita,
Display the living mind of reality.
I offer myself in body speech and mind.
Please take your seat here.
Please show yourself now as life itself.
3
Accepting these offerings,
Consuming us utterly,
Though you do not move or stir,
We request you now to appear.
As you crush the husk of a body that clings to an I,
May we meet you face to face
In the living paths of development and completion.
As you crush the husk of a body that clings to an I,
May we meet you face to face
In the living experience free from bias.
As you crush the husk of samsara itself,
May we meet you face to face
In the living bond of samaya.
As you crush the husk of a body that arises from karma,
May we meet you face to face
Consumed in the commitment of inner heat.
As you crush the husk of a body that clings to an I,
May we meet you face to face
In the limitless illusion of embodiment.
As you crush the husk of the three worlds,
May we meet you face to face
In the luminous expanse of dream.
As you crush the husk of a body that clings to an I,
May we meet you face to face
In the unimpeded flow of all-pervasive luminosity.
As you crush the husk of a body that tends to clings to an I,
May we meet you face to face
In passing freely from illusory life to life.
As you crush the husk of a body that cling to an I,
May we meet you face to face
In completely transforming the apparition of existence.
As you crush the husk of craving in the duality of samsara and nirvana,
May we meet you face to face
In the one taste of great bliss.
Offering the mudra to the Guru who is Buddha himself,
May we meet you face to face
In the great mirror of Mahamudra which is Reality itself.
Offering you our body as the mandala of existence,
May we live in the ever present spontaneous union
Of mother and child luminosity
Inseparable from your body, speech, and mind
In the ceaseless co-emergence of the bardo.
4
Here, by the power of life itself,
You arise unborn
From the red thousand-petalled lotus
Which is the spontaneous flowering,
The living purity of all outer and inner phenomena,
The secret space of Prajnaparamita.
Seated with your left leg down and your right knee raised,
Your naked body shimmers
Like the pale autumn sky at sunrise.
You are covered with ash.
Your wild black hair is bound up into a loose top-knot.
Your blood-shot eyes burn like the noon sun.
Your face is sun-burned and unshaven.
You grimace and your sharp irregular teeth clash
With the sound of breaking glass.
You smile lasciviously
And every movement of the air seems melodious.
Your expression, is shameless, impenitent,
Lustful and indifferent.
In your right hand, you hold a living silver fish
Whose red guts hang from its belly.
In your left hand you hold an ancient skull-cup
Brimming with liquor.
Your scent is tangy and feral.
You are still as a wolf awaiting its prey.
You are luminous as the full moon at midnight.
Suddenly, you arise on your seat
In the shimmer of all perception.
Suddenly you sing
In the beating heart of the body.
You are presence itself.
5
In endless union with the self-existing consort,
In the yoga of Chandali,
You are the heat of fire.
In endless union with the self existing consort,
In the yoga of illusory body,
You are the solidness of earth.
In endless union with the self existing consort,
In the yoga of dream,
You are the movement of wind.
In endless union with the self existing consort,
In the yoga of luminosity,
You are primordial space.
In endless union with the self existing consort,
In the yoga of transference,
You are the pervasiveness of water.
In endless union with the self existing consort,
In the yoga of bardo,
You are consciousness itself.
In inseparable non-dual union,
You dwell in the empty essence
In the luminous heart of the primordial consort
Where all inner and outer phenomena
Rise, dwell and die.
Free from experience,
You are not born;
You do not remain;
You do not die.
OM AH HUM
TILO, TILO TILO
HRIH AH HAM
AH AH AH HUM PHAT
6
Sought in the mirage of appearance,
You change form and disappear.
Found in the mirage of appearance,
You are mute.
Supplicated in the mandala of appearance,
You show the luminous empty heart
Piercing through all the illusions of pleasure and pain.
All that exists and does not exist,
All that moves and does not move,
All that is mind and is beyond mind,
Offering and offered inseparable,
Swirls in your kapala.
RAM YAM KAM
Unborn,
As our senses shine.
This is the direct experience
Of Tilopa, the corpse,
The natural kingdom of body.
Living,
As the seasons pass.
This is the direct experience
Of Tilopa, the root,
The unceasing power of speech.
Without past
As in the alternation of day and night,
This is the direct experience
Of Tilopa, the tree,
The deathless lineage co-emergent wisdom.
Beyond awareness
There is reality here and now.
This is the direct experience
Of Tilopa, the stream,
Ungraspable, complete, alive.
Experience now
The bliss of Tilopa's mind:
This unborn word:
This naked world.
7
These are the oral instruction which Tilopa himself sang to Naropa.
You are a worthy vessel.
In the monastery of Pullahari,
In the limitless expanse of luminosity, beyond concept,
The sparrow of mind, moving from life to life,
Has flown on the wings of co-emergence.
Do not yearn for belief in a self.
In the monastery of non-dual prajna,
In the offering pit of the illusory body,
By the radiance of awareness rising from the bliss and heat of inner heat,
The fuel of the kleshas and conventional concepts
Of body, speech and mind has been burnt up.
Do not pine for the duality of this and that.
In the monastery free from words and concepts,
The sharp knife of prajna,
Of Mahasukha, of Mahamudra
Has cut the rope of ambition in the bardo.
Dismiss the craving which causes all attachment.
Walk the hidden path of the Wish-Fulfilling Gem
Leading to the realm of the heavenly tree, the changeless.
Untie the tongues of mutes.
Stop the stream of samsara, of belief in a self.
Recognize your true nature as a mother knows her child.
Prajna is self-aware,
Beyond the path of speech
And the object of no thought whatsoever .
I, Tilopa have nothing at which to point.
Know this as pointing in itself to itself.
Do not imagine, think, deliberate,
Meditate, act, but be at rest.
Do not be concerned with any object.
Reality, self-existent, radiant,
In which no memory can disturb you,
Cannot be called a thing.(1)
8
O great Tilopa
O incomparable
O unborn and deathless one,
As you have never departed,
By your unsparing kindness,
May we remain in the Great Inseparability
Of your unchanging body speech and mind.
If there is any continuity of anything,
It is you.
If there is any lineage of anything anywhere,
It is you.
If there is love,
It is you.
By the power of your motiveless intention
Which fills the sky like ceaseless wind,
May every illusory being,
Drifting frantically through the skies like dust
Find completion
In the uncontrived and luminous mandala of your being.
AH AH AH
*
And again that same yogi whispered to King Gesar:
Unborn,
The senses shine.
This is the direct experience
Of Telopa, the corpse,
The natural kingdom of body.
Living,
The seasons emerge.
This is the direct experience
Of Telopa, the root,
The unceasing power of speech.
Without past
In the alternation of day and night,
This is the direct experience
Of Telopa, the tree,
The deathless lineage co-emergent wisdom.
Beyond awareness
There is reality.
This is the direct experience
Of Telopa, the stream,
Ungraspable, complete, alive.
Experience now
The bliss of Telopa's mind:
This unborn word:
This naked world.
THE LIFE OF KUKKURIPA
At another moment, near the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, Gesar sees the great sage Megashri. The sage sings wordlessly and displays to Gesar incalculable, uncountable, immeasurable, inconceivable incomprehensible, inestimable numbers of Buddhas. He shows Gesar as many Buddhas a there are atoms in all the continents and as many Pure Land of there are stars in all the galaxies. Gesar sees Buddhas in innumerable fixed and changing forms, all radiating light in networks of rays of many colors, pervading all conceivable world systems, uniting them in a vast total pattern which is beyond conception or comprehension or truth or falsehood. The great sage shows Gesar the infinity of intersecting nets that are the inseparable nature of light and awareness. The great sage conveys to Gesar, King of Ling, the Peerless Warrior the words that follow.
THE BLAZING MIRROR
OF ABSOLUTE COMPASSION:
INVOKING THE SUPREME MAHASIDDHA
KUKKURIPA,
THE CO-EMERGENT KING OF ILLUSION
1.i
In the taste of sukra,
Thought spontaneously returns to non-thought.
Known directly in the gate of passion
Which no concept can penetrate,
Inseparable light and life force,
Pulse with primordial Great Bliss.
The stainless expanse of boundless compassion,
Radiant with the four joys,
Ceaselessly emanates and gathers without motive or direction.
Beyond all worlds, it offers and receives the world.
Homage to this, the self-born mind of Kukkuripa
Who, hearing the cries of illusory worlds
Moves through the empty realms of form.
Everywhere.
1.ii
Though called Kukkuripa
Born from the unchanging bindu,
His family name cannot be known.
Though known as Shantibhadra,
His birth name cannot be remembered.
He appeared suddenly in the eastern part of Bengal.
He appeared later as monk and pandita at glorious Nalanda
Where he mastered the twelve branches of scripture of the two vehicles.
But hearing the echo of Maitreya's whisper on an evening breeze,
He moved to seek the luminous great expanse
Pulsing in the symbolic forms free from habitual tendencies.
He moved to a forest cave near Lumbini
To practice in uninterrupted solitude.
1.iii
For twelve years, one pointedly,
Free from acceptance and rejection,
Kukkuripa practiced in this way:
The radiance which arises at the moment of death
Is the luminosity of Dharmakaya.
Seeing everything in sensory reality as unelaborated Dharmakaya
Brings this inner radiance to the path.
To purify all habitual tendencies of the illusory body,
And bring them to the path,
The essence of all meditation is the Great Compassion.
By meditating on the seed syllables, Buddhas and Buddha fields
The circumstances of being born into a particular place and body
Are completely purified.
Thus all the physical world is the pure body of enlightenment;
Hearing all sound is the pure speech of enlightenment;
Experiencing all the movements of mind is the pure mind of enlightenment.
So by one pointed meditation
On the stainless empty nature of phenomena
And Lokeshvara's all-pervasive love,
Kukkuripa was firmly established in utpattikrama
And achieved the worldly siddhis:
Swift movement, penetration of matter, clairvoyance,
Flying, invisibility, immortality, complete health, and the rest.
In this way, he lived alone deep within the forest,
Eating fruit and nuts, and wild yams,
Drinking water from a nearby stream.
One day a small black dog,
A female puppy, starving and lice-ridden,
Ventured into his cave.
For three days, lovingly he fed and nursed the dog.
1.iv
But then Kukkuripa heard the voice of Indra
And rose up far above the cloudy summit of Mt. Meru,
To the Place of Auspicious Vision,
The realm of the thirty-three gods of the desire realm,
And the secret dwelling of the Yaksas.
In the shining center of this realm,
Encircled by a hundred jeweled turrets
And encompassed by a golden wall,
Stands Indra's court, the Victorious Abode.
Sixteen thousand jewel columns form the terraces of the palace
And support its golden roofs.
Five hundred gods guard its four gates in each of the four directions.
Below the ground is soft as silk but made of gold
And sprinkled with jewels of a hundred and one hues.
In each direction stands a park outside the city walls,
And fragrant gardens border each of these parks.
Everywhere are magical elephants, horses, thousands of attendants.
Yaksa vajra-holders dwell in the four mounds
At the four corners of Mt. Meru's summit.
Beyond the parks to the northeast stands the All Gathering Tree,
The source of fulfillment of all wishes.
Beneath it lies a square white stone slab, glowing like moon light.
In the southeast is the great crystal vase of amrita,
Protecting the gods from sickness, aging and sudden death.
The air is filled with the endless reverberation of a drumbeat
Echoing the truths of impermanence, suffering, emptiness,
Pulsing with the thought of nirvana as eternal peace.
Southwest of the court is the circular gathering place
Where the gods hear the excellent law.
In its center is a great golden throne.
Here Indra sits as he teaches the gods seated around him.
Around glorious Indra, radiant as the noon-day sun,
Sit the thirty-two: eight are the gods of wealth,
Then the Asvin twins, lords of fertility and harvest,
The eleven wrathful protectors, and the twelve lesser suns.
All these deities appear in this realm in their own form
And, simultaneously, as the places and qualities of that realm.
This is the expanse of the phenomena created by desire.
1.v
Measureless in its array of subtle harmonies and insights,
Utterly absorbing all restless dissatisfactions of mind,
In this glittering realm of infinite delicacy,
Only a hair's breadth of difference separates outer and inner worlds.
So overwhelmed by waves of pleasure and gratitude
Kukkuripa lingered there for what seemed many years.
Yet one day, he thought of the small dog, left starving in his cave.
He called out to the gods:
"Let us all descend now to the land of Jambudvipa."
And when they asked why, he told them of the dog
Which must even now be dying without water and food.
"Ah, " they replied, "Even though you have practiced for so long,
You are still attached to the idea of a dog."
And persuaded by this argument, Kukkuripa remained for 12 more years.
But the thought of the dog's suffering of thirst and starvation,
Its pains and terror in dying,
The rotting of its body, its bones turned to dust
Would not be dispelled.
Then, in the company of all the gods,
Kukkuripa sang this song:
"Because emptiness is experienced as void;
Because life is experienced as the limit of a self;
Because light is experienced as knowing;
Because compassion is experienced as an action;
Because perceptions are experienced as attributes;
Because bliss is experienced as pleasure;
You great gods and your domain are conditional and illusory,
And you must cling to limits imposed by desire, sensation and mind.
“But know, my friends, that the infinite delights here
Are equaled by the intensity of terror and regret
That you will find when your beautiful bodies suddenly begin to age
And your sublime domain dissolves
In the smoke of the charnel ground and smell of rotting flesh.
“While you still can, realize that you and your realm
Have risen as a spontaneous gift of primordial Great Compassion
From the radiance of Buddha Amitaeus, Lord of Boundless Life,
As a shadow of his deathless pure realm
Seen dimly through the screen of your desires.
“Now by opening your hearts and thoughts to the flow
Of Great Compassion, which is the free breath of endless life,
The senses themselves become the self-existing gateways
To unconditioned life, all-pervasive light, and compassion
Free from the chains of desire and fear."
Fear froze the minds of all the gods,
And with longing they listened.
Kukkuripa then showed the Buddha's way
Of entering the Pure Realm Of Amitaeus,
Self-Born Lord of Boundless Life
To all the gods, Yaksas and other deities.
2.i
Pointing to the sun, to water, to earth, and so forth,
He showed them in this way:
“Gazing at the sun, brilliant, nurturing, and all-pervasive
As it hangs in the Eastern sky like a suspended drum,
Let the continuity of radiant light remain clear and unchanging
Whether one's eyes are open or closed.
“Gazing on pure water, let it fill your mind.
As it becomes ice, shining and transparent.
It becomes a deep blue ground of lapis lazuli,
Shining from within and without,
Lit by the vast sparkling jeweled cloth of gold beneath it.
This water, radiant, insubstantial and ever moving
Is the ground of all qualities and aspirations.
“From the substantial and enduring qualities of earth,
An immeasurable expanse of jeweled palaces arise,
Adorned with garlands of pearls, diamonds, rubies, and liquid gold,
Surrounded by rows of trees with jewel leaves
From whose branches hang sweet ripe fruit.
From this earth comes the solid form of all qualities and aspiration.
“From the ever moving quality of air
Arise vivacious perfumes and subtle promptings.
All sounds become melodious .
From this air comes the movement of aspiration.
“Free from illusory longings or fixed desires,
The elements, from their own nature,
Are joined in perfect permanent accord.
This glimpse of Amitaeus' Pure Realm
Purifies eons of evil deeds and habitual perceptions.
“Here in the light of the jeweled leaves of each tree,
An infinite number of Buddhas like fine dew
Radiate light into an infinity of pure and impure realms.
All the waters, palaces, and so forth
Also sparkle with the blazing of countless hosts of Buddhas
Filling the whole of space.
“In the center, like the sun at the center of all light rays in the world,
The Buddha Amitaeus, radiant like molten gold,
Sits on his blazing lotus throne.
The Tathagata's body is the body of the Dharmadhatu,
And inseparable from the 8 consciousnesses,
The qualities of your own mind, innate and radiant.
“At that moment, all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
Send out streams of golden light bathing all of phenomena.
Then one hears the path of liberation spontaneously
Echoing in streams of water, breezes, the stirring of leaves,
Bird songs and flickers of light.
“You are completely inseparable
From Buddha Amitaeus, boundless life itself;
From Buddha Amitabha, who is infinite light;
And from Avalokiteshvara, the embodiment of compassion
Unlimited by ordinary concepts of space, time, or difference.
“Now, or later when the karma which has bound the elements
In this realm and being dissolves,
Rely on this.
“As subtle movements of air in air,
All dualistic struggles are dissolved in boundless life.
As sunlight colored in shifting clouds,
All delusory passions are dissolved in boundless light.
As mind taking shape in myriad illusory phenomena,
All suffering and fear of suffering are dissolved in limitless compassion.
You are no longer restricted by the limits of being, time, or realm.
“So, be it in one place or many; be it all at one time or in many times.
Wherever there is imprisonment in pain and confusion,
You will appear there to liberate beings from suffering.
“Be it in one place or many, be it all at one time or in many times,
Wherever the Tathagata appears,
You will appear to hear and praise that one.
“Because the Tathagata is the heart of all life,
These two activities are identical.”
Thus dissolving all absorption in the realm of the thirty-three gods,
Kukkuripa re-entered the human realm.
3.i
When the Acarya had returned to his forest cave,
The dog he had left behind ran up to him.
She had neither starved nor aged.
It seemed as if he had been gone for no more than a day,
And might have seemed no more than an instant,
Except that in his absence,
The puppy had dug out a pit in the rear of the cave,
And there a spring of crystal water rose.
Seeing it, Kukkuripa heard in the bubbling water's play
The clear voice of Nagarjuna himself:
"Water lying deep within the earth
Rises immaculate and pure,
Like pure wisdom which seemed lost and locked
In the obscurations of this world."
Then Kukkuripa picked up the black she-dog,
Held it in his lap and caressed it,
And he did so, the dog became the yogini
Radiant in the full bloom of youth,
Splendid with all the major and minor marks.
3.ii
Then Vajrayogini, in a voice
With the sound of an approaching summer thunder-storm,
Called to the Acarya:
"In the deathless pulse of limitless compassion,
Radiant, all-penetrating, unfixed,
There is no obstacle or antidote.
The relative and absolute,
The momentary and the timeless do not separate.
“In the unfabricated samadhi, there is no attainment.
So it is said:
'Supremely unchanging great passion is primordial awareness.'
“Light and life force joined
In the gate of passion
As temporary conventional bliss
Is inseparable from bliss beyond concept.
“Expanding and gathering
This bliss is the direct expression of limitless compassion."
3.iii
Then in a haunting and melodious soft voice,
Like the sound of a bird leaving the nest,
The Yogini sang to him:
“You have emptied the god realm, O son of Noble Family.
You have done well to return here.
“The pure and free expanse of sunyata
Is not reached by the contrived path of rejecting the world.
The changeless radiance of Great Compassion
Is not reached by the fabricated path of clinging to good qualities.
"Here, now this very place is
The living reality of compassion.
“Here the six realms and the trikaya
Are simultaneous.
This can only be seen in the light
Of all-inclusive Great Compassion,
Which is the Great Bliss.
“This world, exactly as it is,
The body, speech and mind of all the Buddhas,
Here, now and always reaches out to you.
“Now, in this very instant, here on this very spot,
The Dakini opens the unfabricated treasury of the innate,
The stainless great bliss, ever undispersed.
“Thus, from the universal heart of ceaseless compassion itself
Known only by direct experience
In the treasure-house of phenomenal existence,
The Four Abhishekas spontaneously arise.
3.iv
Kukkuripa and the Yogini were henceforth inseparable.
This is the uncontrived samaya,
The primordial ground,
The unmistaken path,
The fruition which needs no confirmation
Even by experience itself.
This is the unimpeded living expression
Of space in union with space.
Free from intention or effort,
Samatha, natural motionless non-thought;
Vipassana, natural movement devoid of attachment;
Inseparable: this is the authentic Mahavipassana
Of ceaseless Great Compassion.
Should even the notion of an obscuration arise,
Should even subtle duality appear momentarily real,
Let it melt in that motiveless embrace
Which is Buddha-nature itself.
Receive the unfathomable offerings
Of shimmering senses and torrential passions
Arising from the primordial union of bliss and emptiness
As the spontaneous ganachakra
Consumed by joy,
Consuming it.
Consumed by desolation.
Consuming it.
Consumed by mystery,
Consuming it.
Consumed by terror,
Consuming it.
Consumed by sickness,
Consuming it.
Consumed by gratitude,
Consuming it.
Giving and consuming all.
Nothing is excluded.
There is no remainder,
As the wisdom flames
Dance madly in the empty sky.
3.v
Kukkuripa then sang this song:
"Married to one whose mind is the sky,
My abandonment within phenomena cannot be described.
“Abandoned, I see the source and origin.
O Mother, the child I see here cannot, in truth, be seen.
“From my first childbirth came a son,
His being made from sensations, memory, emotional tendencies.
Cutting the umbilical cord,
He too is abandoned.
“Cut down to the root,
My birth and youth are fulfilled.”
Kukkuripa says: “This is firm.
Whoever understands this is a hero."
3.vi
Moving as the directionless wind of great compassion
Through the infinite open expanse of pure illusion,
Appearing in a galaxy forms,
Appearing in an infinite expanse of realms and places,
Appearing in words and outside of words,
The Mahasiddha Kukkuripa
Is said to have dwelt in Lumbini and Kapilavastu.
He is said to have brought back many tantras from the Dakini realm.
He is said to have liberated innumerable beings.
Padmavajra who taught Telo who taught Naro
Is said to be his student.
Sent by Naropa, Marpa of Lhodrak met him
And received the Mahamaya and its three yogas from him.
At that time, Mahasiddha Kukkuripa lived in the south
On a mountain island in the center of a boiling poison lake.
He appeared there as a dark human form, the color of a rotten corpse.
His body was covered with hair and his face was like a monkey's.
Marpa found him lying still beneath a tamarind tree,
Covered with bird feathers, his face hidden in the crook of his arm.
A black female dog slept next to him.
Now, this great lord dwells in the sky of the Dakini realm,
Where he is the unwaning moon and ever-rising sun.
His indestructible three gates
Are passport and entry into all pure realms.
Awake, completely free, alive, sudden and direct
He is Buddha Amitaeus, Boundless Life.
His signless mind is living reality itself.
Blazing with passion, stirring every movement of the mind,
He is Buddha Amitabha, Boundless Light.
His voice is the brilliance of love and source of all clarity.
Reaching out in all phenomena considered as other,
He is Avalokiteshvara, ever responding to all suffering.
His body is the ever-present world of the senses.
Free in all the illusory dimensions of space and time,
Savoring everything,
He is self-born Great Compassion, running wild.
MAHA KARUNA MAHA SUKHA SUDDHA SARVA SVAHA
THE LIFE OF KANKALA AND MEHKALA
Gesar, King of Lin,g sees himself wandering at Sarnath in the gathering darkness of late evening. A young girl appears from the dark and gives him a text. He cannot read it because then the Queen of Night encompasses him.
Emerging from every shining pore of the Queen of Night’s velvet body, Gesar sees all the sentient beings, gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, hell-beings with all their varying capabilities and interests in all their disparate abodes. Some are joyful, others suffer unspeakably. Amongst them, he sees innumerable beings trying to dispel the ignorance and relieve the suffering of those around them. They are like the immeasurable flickers of light rising and falling on a vast torrential night sea.
THE RAZOR OF PRAJNA:
CALLING ON THE ALL-PERVASIVE
SARVABUDDHADAKINI,
THE FEARLESS AND RADIANT ONES,
MAHAYOGINIS MEKHALA AND KANAKHALA
1.i
Appearing in her unassimilable display,
Appearing without thought in form after form,
She dances the endless winds of mind-made karma
That pour through the empty chambers of the heart,
Tearing apart the heart of form and giving birth.
Homage to her who is the offering,
The offerer, and the object of the offering;
The sacrifice, the sacrificer, the object of the sacrifice.
One in the vast emptiness of the guru's mind.
1.ii
Mekhala and Kanakhala were sisters born to a householder in Maharastra. Mekhala was two years older than Kanakhala. Their father felt fortunate to betroth them in their childhood to the two sons of a wealthy merchant, and years later was beside himself with pleasure when the marriages finally took place.
Though both the merchant's sons were, to all appearances, entirely respectable, in fact the elder one was perversely dissolute while the younger one was cold and cared only for business. Mekhala, for her husband's amusement, was forced to subject herself to the sexual usage of his friends; while Kankhala was neglected and continually criticized by her husband's family for failing to please him. Mekhala found herself being secretly debased into something with less self-respect than a slave. While Kanakhala found herself becoming a wraithlike demoness, consumed by resentment and bitterness.
When they sat together, recalling their childhood, so filled with delight, excitement, and curiosity, they could not understand why they were now so tortured and their life so painful and unrecognizable. Their sorrow was all the greater since their own family would not listen and would not permit them to return home.
"Is there a bridge that can cross over this wasteland of evils and suffering? Is there any way we can change our lot in this world?" they often wondered as they sat together on a balcony which overlooked the busy street on which their husbands' shop was situated.