CyzPadmakaraRoot

The Precious Treasury of the Dharmadhātu

Longchen Rabjam

Title

In Sanskrit: Dharmadhāturatnakoṡanāma
In Tibetan: Chos dbyings rin po che’ i mdzod ces bya ba

Introduction

Homage to glorious Samantabhadra!

Marvelous wonder,
Present of itself from the beginning,
Primordial wisdom,
Luminous and self-­ arisen,
The enlightened mind!
This is the treasure mine from which arises
All phenomenal existence,
Samsara and nirvana,
The world and its inhabitants.
I bow in homage to this unmoving freedom
From conceptual elaboration.

The supreme peak, the Sumeru of all the vehicles,
The radiant expanse of sun and moon,
Luminous and present of itself—
This is the vast expanse of vajra essence.
Beyond all effort and all practice,
It is the vast expanse,
The natural state beyond all fabrication.
Listen to me now, for I shall tell you
Of this wondrous and primordial immensity.

Chapter 1

Samsara and Nirvana Do Not Stir
from the Ultimate Expanse

1. The vast space of spontaneous presence
Is the ground whence all arises.
Empty in its nature,
Luminous in character, unceasing,
It does not exist as anything at all,
Though anything at all arises from it.
Samsara and nirvana both emerge unbidden
In the space of the three kāyas.
Yet from this ultimate expanse they do not stray,
The field of blissful ultimate reality.

2. The vast expanse, the nature of the mind,
Is changeless like the sphere of space.
Indeterminate is its display:
The vast expanse of manifest appearance of cognizant power.
All things are inexistent
Except as ornaments upon the ultimate expanse.
The outer and the inner and the to and fro of consciousness
Are the creative power of the enlightened mind.
Not anything, yet giving rise to everything,
It is a marvelous prodigy, endowed with wonderful display.

3. The outer and the inner,
The world together with its beings,
All the things that manifest as forms
Are but adornments of the ultimate expanse,
Arising as the wheel of the enlightened body.
All reverberation, sounds and language,
As many as there are without exception,
Are but the adornments of the ultimate expanse,
Arising as the wheel of the enlightened speech.
Memories, awareness, mental movement,
Proliferation, no-­ thought—
All mental states in number past imagining—
Are but the adornments of the ultimate expanse,
Arising as the wheel of the enlightened mind.

4. Beings in the six migrations
And four ways of being born
Stray not a single atom from the sphere of ultimate reality.
Phenomenal existence—
Six objects, apprehended-­ apprehender—
All indeed appears.
It is a magical illusion in the dharmadhātu,
Perceived but not existing.
Unsupported, substanceless,
A vast expanse primordially empty,
It is luminosity itself,
Adornment of the dharmadhātu.

5. However things appear, however they resound
Within the vast and ultimate expanse,
They do not waver from spontaneous equality,
The dharmakāya, the enlightened mind—
The primordial natural state that, in and of itself,
Is empty and devoid of movement and of change.
No matter what appears, it is the dharmatā,
Primordial wisdom, self-­ arisen.
Free of effort, free of striving,
It is gathered in the one expanse of bliss.

6. Unwavering luminosity is the sambhogakāya.
Everything appearing, in the moment of appearing,
Is present of itself as luminous character.
Uncontrived, unchanging,
It is all-­ pervading and spontaneous equality.

7. Arising as a manifest display,
Appearing in distinct diversity,
The nirmāṇakāya is a self-­ arisen emanation,
Marvelous and illusory,
Beyond the scope of action,
Never stirring from Samantabhadra.

8. In the enlightened mind, free of pits and chasms,
The three kāyas are complete all by themselves,
Without the need for striving.
Not stirring from the ultimate expanse,
The kāyas, wisdoms, and enlightened action,
Spontaneous and unconditioned,
Are naturally complete therein.
They are the great accumulation,
Complete from the beginning
In the vast expanse primordially arisen.

9. From the outset present of itself—
Such is the buddha field free of change and movement.
The vision of the dharmatā within the dharmadhātu
Is a knowledge unimpeded that adorns the ultimate expanse.
Not created, not achieved, but present from the first,
It is like the sun arising in the sky,
A wonderful and marvelous prodigy.

10. Within the womb of ultimate expanse,
Present of itself from the beginning,
Samsara is Samantabhadra,
Nirvana is Samantabhadra.
And therefore from the very first,
Within Samantabhadra’s vast expanse,
There has never been samsara and nirvana.
Appearance is Samantabhadra,
Emptiness is Samantabhadra.
Therefore from the very first,
Within Samantabhadra’s vast expanse,
There has never been appearance and emptiness.
Birth and death are both Samantabhadra,
Joy and pain are both Samantabhadra.
Therefore from the very first,
Within Samantabhadra’s vast expanse,
Birth and death and joy and pain have never been.
Self and other are Samantabhadra,
Permanence, annihilation are Samantabhadra.
Therefore from the very first,
Within Samantabhadra’s vast expanse,
No self and other, no permanence and no annihilation
Have there ever been.

11. To grasp existence in the nonexistent—
This is called delusion.
Samsara and nirvana
In their nature are like baseless dreams.
How strange to cling to them as real existent things!

12. All things are Samantabhadra,
Great, spontaneous presence.
There is no samsara
That is now, or has been, or will be, hallucinatory.
It is just a name; it is beyond
The extremes of both being and nonbeing.
No one anywhere has been deluded in the past,
No one is deluded now nor will be in the future.
Such is the primordial purity
Of the three worlds of existence.

13. Since there’s no delusion,
There’s no absence of delusion.
Vast awareness, self-­ arisen and supreme,
Is from the outset present of itself.
It never was, nor is, nor ever will be freed.
In a past that’s just a name,
No one has been freed.
There will never be a state of freedom
Since there never was a state of bondage.
All is pure like space,
Unrestricted, unconfined—
The utter openness and freedom
Of primordial purity.

14. Briefly, in the womb of ultimate expanse,
Immense and present of itself,
Samsara or nirvana—
Whichever is displayed by the creative power—
Has no existence from the moment it arises.
Whatever happens in one’s dreams
Through sleep’s creative power—
None of it is real.
There is just awareness self-­ cognizing,
Blissful in its fundamental stratum,
An all-­ encompassing immensity
That’s even, present of itself.

Samsara and Nirvana Do Not Stir from the Ultimate Expanse

Chapter 2

Phenomenal Existence Is
a Pure Buddha Field

1. The ultimate expanse from the beginning
Is by nature present of itself.
Extending all-­ pervasively, it has no out or in.
It has no boundaries,
No zenith and no nadir,
And no directions main or intermediate.
It is neither wide nor narrow,
For it is awareness, pure and spacelike—
A vast expanse devoid of mind’s elaboration,
Free of thought and points of reference.

2. Displays born in the unborn ultimate expanse
Are completely limitless and indeterminate.
They cannot be identified as this or that;
They are not substances with attributes.
Their nature is like space that spreads
Through infinite directions.
It is unborn spontaneous presence.
No past, no future does it have,
No ending, no beginning.

3. Samsara and nirvana
Are by nature the enlightened mind,
Unborn and without origin,
Indeterminate and present of itself.
It came from nowhere; nowhere does it go.
Free of past and future,
The expanse of the enlightened mind
Is free of one side or another.
Not going and not coming,
It is boundlessly pervasive.

4. Suchness, dharmatā, has no beginning.
It has no center and no limit.
In its purity it is like even, all-­ pervading space.
Without beginning, it is endless.
It transcends all objects of the past and future.
Unborn, unceasing,
It has neither attributes nor substance.
It neither comes nor goes
And cannot be defined as this or that.
Not accomplished through striving,
It is free of all activity.
The ground of suchness is without a center or directions.
With no objective reference or interruption,
It is the dimension of equality.

5. The nature of all things is dharmatā, equality itself.
Thus there’s not a single thing
That does not rest in that equality,
And in this one equality all things are equal!
Such is the condition of enlightened mind.
Since it is the unborn state of all-­ pervading,
Spacelike, vast immensity,
This same equality is free of interruption.

6. Spontaneous, directionless,
This is the stronghold all-­ embracing.
Seamless, without high or low,
It is the stronghold of immensity.
Impartial, all-­ accommodating,
It is the stronghold of the unborn dharmakāya.
Immutable and present of itself,
It is the stronghold of the precious secret.
Phenomenal appearance, samsara and nirvana—
This is the primordial stronghold,
The stronghold of the one and only evenness.

7. Upon the all-­ pervading and all-­ spreading ground,
There stands the citadel of the enlightened mind
Impartially pervading all samsara and nirvana.
Its high imposing tower
Is the vast expanse of dharmatā.
Its central ward transcending all the four directions
Is the uncreated nature.
Its entrance gate is utterly immense,
The freedom from all gradual exertion.
Within that castle, adorned in rich array that’s present of itself,
Is primal wisdom self-­ arisen,
The king upon his throne.
The cognizant acts of the creative power
Of primal wisdom are his ministers
Who hold the land in sway.
Immanent absorption is his sublime queen,
While qualities of realization,
Which manifest spontaneously,
Are like his heir apparent with the servants and attendants.
All are gathered in the vast space of great bliss,
The thought-­ free luminosity.

8. The mastery of all phenomenal existence,
The universe and its inhabitants,
Lies in the unmoving state
Beyond imagination and description,
The boundless vast domain of dharmadhātu.

9. If in that domain you stay,
All is dharmakāya,
Never stirring from the single, self-­ arisen primal wisdom,
Which, uncreated and possessed primordially,
Transcends all effortful endeavor.
Since this single sphere, free of edge or corner,
Is all-­ encompassing,
The natural state of things, just as it is,
Beyond all differentiation,
Is gathered in this single vast expanse.

10. The abodes of the six kinds of beings
Together with the buddha fields
Do not exist but in the spacious realm of dharmatā.
Within the luminous enlightened mind,
All are of a single taste.
Samsara and nirvana both
Are utterly encompassed by awareness.

11. In this treasury, the dharmadhātu, source of everything,
Nirvana is spontaneously present with no need for striving.
The changeless dharmakāya,
Free of all objective reference,
Is all-­ pervasive, present in all things.
Appearances both out and in,
The world and its inhabitants,
Are the sambhogakāya.
The self-­ arising of phenomena, reflection-­ like,
Is the nirmāṇakāya.
Therefore there are no phenomena
That are not perfectly subsumed
As the adornments of the triple kāya.
Everything that manifests is the display
Of the enlightened body, speech, and mind.
Even the unnumbered buddha fields
Of the sugatas, leaving none aside,
Arise from the same source:
The nature of the mind,
The vast expanse of the three kāyas.

12. The cities, also, of the six migrations,
Samsara in their nature,
Appear just like reflections in the dharmadhātu.
The various experiences of birth and death, of joy and sorrow
Are like images projected
In the space of the mind’s nature.
They seem to be and yet are nonexistent.
Appearing, they are utterly unfounded.
Like clouds up in the sky, they’re adventitious,
Arising merely through conditions.
Not existent and not nonexistent,
Their nature is beyond the ontological extremes.
They are utterly encompassed
By the sphere of freedom from elaboration.

13. The enlightened mind, the nature of the mind,
Is pure like space and therefore free
From birth and death, from joy and pain.
Without substance and not falling to one side or to another,
It is free of the phenomena of samsara and nirvana.
You cannot point to it as “this.”
Utterly immense, just like the vast abyss of space,
Changeless, without movement,
It is present of itself and unconditioned.
It is the vajra heart of luminosity.
It is buddhahood itself.
All things are the field of self-­ arisen bliss,
Supreme enlightenment, spontaneous equality.

Phenomenal Existence Is a Pure Buddha Field

Chapter 3

Metaphors for
the Enlightened Mind

1. All things are subsumed within
The enlightened, all-­ subsuming mind.
Nothing is there other than enlightened mind.
By nature, all things are enlightened mind.

2a. The enlightened mind
Is metaphorically compared with space.
It has no cause. It has no place of birth.
It is not localized.
Transcending speech,
It lies beyond the reach of thought.
“The vast abyss of space”
Will merely indicate it metaphorically.
And since that which has been given as a metaphor
Is not a thing that can be pointed to as “this,”
How could that which is compared with it
Be thought or spoken of?
Understand: this metaphor refers
To its pure nature.

2b. That which is referred to
Is awareness, the enlightened mind,
Self-­ cognizing, vast as space.
Not within the reach of thought,
It cannot be described or pointed out.
Luminous, unmoving,
An immense expanse of luminosity,
It is uncreated, present of itself,
With neither height nor breadth—The
vast sphere of the dharmakāya,
The essence of enlightenment.

2c. The evidential sign is
That anything at all arises
Through the awareness’s creative power.
But when arising happens,
There’s no place for such arising
And nothing that in fact arises.
“Arising,” thus, is just a word.
It is like space, when you examine it.
Everything is utterly contained
In seamless great equality—
An all-­ pervading space
Devoid of apprehending subject
And an object to be apprehended.

3. Self-­ arisen primordial wisdom, ultimate reality,
Is completely boundless.
This is clearly shown
By metaphor, by referent, and by sign.
This spacelike nature,
Wherein all is gathered without difference or exclusion,
Is established by these three great nails.
In the vast womb of the ultimate expanse,
The vast, supreme state of equality,
All is from the outset equal—
Neither earlier nor later, neither good nor bad.
Such is the wisdom mind
Of Samantabhadra-­ Vajrasattva.

4a. The enlightened mind is like the very essence of the sun,
Luminous intrinsically, unconditioned from the first.
There is nothing that might darken it.
It is open, unimpeded, present of itself,
Free of mind’s elaboration,
Ultimate reality devoid of thought.

4b. Empty, it is dharmakāya;
Luminous, it is sambhogakāya;
Radiant, it is nirmāṇakāya.
These three kāyas are inseparable.
Since these qualities are from the outset present of themselves,
They have never been obscured
By the gloom of flaws and faults.
And in the past and future,
Through the course of time,
They are one in being free
Of movement and of change.
They are one in their pervasion
Of all buddhas and all beings.
They are what is called the self-­ arisen and enlightened mind.

5. Its creative power may arise as anything at all—
As realization or the absence of the same,
As phenomenal existence,
The world and all the beings it contains,
And as all the various experiences of living beings.

6. All such things occur,
And yet they lack intrinsic being.
They’re like the water in a mirage,
Like dreams, like echoes, like emanated apparitions,
Or like images reflected in a glass,
Like cities of gandharvas, or like tricks of sight.
Clearly they appear and yet are nonexistent—
Groundless, unsupported,
They are mere appearances arising adventitiously.
Understand that they are fleeting in the present moment.

7. Within the nature of the enlightened mind,
Spontaneously present,
Samsara and nirvana manifest,
Unceasingly displayed in their array.
Understand that this display
Is utterly encompassed by the ultimate expanse
And never strays beyond this primal state.

8. There, all things are the enlightened mind—
One is perfectly contained,
All are perfectly contained,
The unconditioned too is perfectly contained.
Their nature is primordial wisdom,
Self-­ arisen, perfect of itself.

9. The enlightened mind does not exist
As manifest, unmanifest, samsara or nirvana,
As outer things or inner things.
Yet through the stirring of creative power
A various display arises naturally:
Phenomenal existence, samsara and nirvana.

10. In their moment of arising,
Things are by their nature empty forms.
Because there’s no arising, they appear to arise.
Yet in their moment of appearing,
There is nothing that arises.
Because there’s no cessation, they appear to cease.
And yet they do not cease;
They are illusions, empty forms.
While remaining, there is nothing that remains.
For what remains is groundless,
And it neither comes nor goes.
However things appear, they do not exist as such.
They are without intrinsic being.
They are no more than names.

11. These appearances moreover
Self-­ arise through the creative power.
Thus only figuratively are they said
To be dependently arisen by their nature.
In the very moment they appear
By virtue of creative power,
They do so in a manner free
From such divisions and extremes
As the arising and the absence of arising.
Creative power is also just a figurative label.
It too lacks all reality.
Nothing in the least stirs ever
From the enlightened mind,
Which is the state beyond all movement and all change.

Metaphors for the Enlightened Mind