CyzPadmakaraRoot

The Precious Treasury of the Dharmadhātu

Longchen Rabjam

༄༅། །རྒྱལ་བ་ཀློང་ཆེན་རབ་འབྱམས་ཀྱིས་མཛད་པའི་
ཆོས་དབྱིངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་མཛོད་ཀྱི་རྩ་བ་དང་
ཁང་སར་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་བསྟན་པའི་དབང་ཕྱུག་གིས་མཛད་པའི་
འབྲུ་འགྲེལ་འོད་གསལ་ཐིིག་ལེ་ཉག་གཅིག་
བཞུགས་སོ། །

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

Chapter 4

The Nature of the Enlightened Mind

1. The nature of the all-­encompassing enlightened mind
Does not appear, it transcends appearance.
It is not empty, it transcends emptiness.
It is not existent, it has no substance and no properties.
It is not nonexistent, it pervades samsara and nirvana.
Not existent and not nonexistent, present of itself and even,
It is the vast primordial expanse.
With no extremes, with no divisions,
It is groundless, rootless, and devoid of substance.

2. Unbroken in its continuity,
Awareness is enlightenment's expanse—
Changeless, motionless, the vast abyss of space,
Pervasive from the very first.
It is self-­arisen primordial wisdom
From the very first without a peer.
Not arising and not ceasing,
Encompassed by the one sole sphere,
Indeterminate and all-­pervasive,
It is utterly beyond all limiting extremes.

3. Unwavering equality, present of itself—
Such is the lineage of the vajra essence.
This supreme and infinite expanse,
Which from beings is never separate,
Is not within the reach of verbal indication.
It is the bursting forth of wisdom—
The sphere of self-­knowing awareness.
Yogis who are free from all activity
Of thought and word
Possess decisive certainty that this expanse
Transcends both indication and nonindication.
And finding neither meditation nor anything on which to meditate,
These yogis do not need to slay the foes
Of dullness, agitation, and discursive thought.

4. Within the dharmatā, which from the very first subsists
Immediate and unmediated,
There is no thought of self and other.
The three worlds, therefore, by their nature
Are a buddha field of evenness.

5. The Victorious Ones of the three times
Are awareness's pure self-­experience.
Nothing is there to abandon, nothing to accept.
All is but the single state of evenness.
No achievement in the slightest
Is attained from somewhere else.
All phenomena are clearly present
In the vast expanse of the mind's nature.
They do not in the slightest waver from the nature of equality.

6. Free of out and in, arising and subsiding,
Free of all turbidity,
Dispeller of the gloom of all extreme positions—
Such is the enlightened mind, the root.
It does not relinquish anything,
And yet it naturally removes all deviation.

7. Although the various appearances of the world and beings,
And also the pure buddhas and primordial wisdoms—
A ceaseless play pervading the expanse of space—
Appear through awareness's creative power
(Through realization or the lack of realization),
In truth, within the dharmadhātu,
"Realize," "not to realize"—
These are simply names.
Thanks to realization,
There arise the pure perceptions of the sugata.
Through lack of realization, there occur, in their diversity,
Perceptions, which arise
Through ignorance and dualistic habit.
Yet none of this stirs from the ultimate expanse.

8a. The enlightened mind indeed
Is the actual ground of everything.
It arises ceaselessly in various array,
But this is but the radiance
Within the pure expanse of luminous dharmatā.
Without division or exclusion,
This is but the dance of unconfined awareness.

8b. Primal wisdom, open, unimpeded,
A self-­arisen vast expanse,
Is unobstructed luminosity, free of out and in.
It is awareness self-­cognizing,
The great light of the mirror of the mind.
It is the precious jewel of dharmadhātu
That brings forth all that one desires—
For all arises naturally
Without the need for striving.
Self-­arisen primordial wisdom
Is the source of all that one might wish.

9. All the many great and wholesome qualities
Arising in the ultimate expanse
Are of that same expanse.
They ceaselessly occur
As supreme skillful means
And are spontaneously perfect in the vast unborn expanse.
Phenomena are therefore overwhelmed by emptiness,
The vast space of enlightenment.
And emptiness in turn is overwhelmed
By awareness self-­cognizing,
The vast space of enlightenment.

10. There have never been appearances and emptiness
In the enlightened mind.
But do not grasp at "nonduality,"
For there is indeed an inconceivable display.
The no-­time of the three times
Is the unborn dharmadhātu,
The vast space that is changeless, unconditioned, undivided.
It is the buddhas of the three times,
The ultimate expanse of self-­cognizing primal wisdom.
The vast space of enlightenment,
Awareness self-­cognizing,
Overwhelms the apprehending subject
And the object to be apprehended.
With no division, out or in,
Ultimate reality is vast and present of itself.

The Nature of the Enlightened Mind

Chapter 5

The Enlightened Mind Is beyond Effortful Striving and Causality

1. Within the nature of the mind—
Enlightened mind itself—
There is no view on which to meditate,
No action to perform and no result to gain.
There are no paths, no grounds to cross,
No mandala to visualize, no mantra to recite,
And no perfection stage.
No empowerment is there to grant and no samaya to observe.
In ultimate reality,
Primordially pure and present of itself,
All adventitious effort, step by step,
All causes and effects are utterly transcended.

2. These factors are enlightened mind itself.
Not obscured by darkness and by clouds,
The sun shines by its very nature in the sky.
It is not adventitiously produced.

3. Whatever has been taught
Concerning ten things grounded in exertion
Was given in relation to hallucinatory experiences
That through awareness's creative power
Adventitiously arise.
They are but skillful means for gradual engagement on the path
By beings who, according to their faculties,
Exert themselves in gradual stages.
For those who are authentically united
With Atiyoga's vajra essence,
They have not been taught.

4. For beings who progress by stages and by means of effort,
The gradual teachings are set forth
To guide them to the dharmatā's primordial expanse.
These are the three small vehicles
Of śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas.
Then three tantras—­Kriyā, Upa, Yoga—
Are naturally set forth as intermediate.

5. Then as the three great vehicles,
Mahā, Anu, Ati are primordially perceived.
Through the opening of the doors of Dharma
Of the causal and resultant vehicles,
The fortunate are led to the three levels of enlightenment.

6. All of them lead of necessity
To the supreme and marvelous secret of the ultimate—
The vajra essence, culmination of them all—
The highest and unchanging luminosity.
This is celebrated as the vehicle
Of the heart of manifest enlightenment.

7. There are indeed two kinds of Dharma,
One of which demands concerted effort
In adopting and rejecting.
It is set forth as a means of cleansing
Mind and mental factors and habitual tendencies,
Which naturally arise as the display
Of awareness's creative power.
In this approach, primordial wisdom
Is said to be more pure than ordinary mind.

8. Beyond concerted effort and beyond accepting or rejecting,
Great dharmatā is self-­arisen primordial wisdom,
The enlightened mind itself.
You actualize it when you do not waver
From direct and face-­to-­face experience.
There is no need to strive for it elsewhere.
It is within yourself. Do not look somewhere else.

9. It is likened to the sun itself.
It is said that when one rests within its natural state,
Its luminosity is motionless.
The other way is said to be
Like making a new sun
By striving to remove the obscuring clouds.
These two approaches are as different
As the earth is from the sky.

10. "Elephants," these days, who claim to practice Ati
Actually allege that thoughts that move and that proliferate
Are themselves the enlightened mind.
These fools are sunk in darkness,
Far from the Natural Great Perfection.
They fail to differentiate creative power
From that which issues forth from it—
Still less do they discern the enlightened mind itself.

11. For us the enlightened mind, primordially pure,
Is the ultimate expanse, the truth of dharmatā.
Transcending thought and word,
It is the wisdom that has gone beyond.
Naturally unmoving, its character is luminous;
It is primordially free of the elaboration
Of all moving and unfolding thought.
It is called "the nature" and is likened
To the sun's essential core.
Its creative power is ceaseless in its dawning.
Awareness open, unimpeded
Is free of both detecting and discerning.
Clearly present, it is free of apprehender and of apprehended.

12. Through its own creative power, awareness manifests
As the conceptually elaborating mind.
This generates duality of apprehender-­apprehended
With all its various propensities.
Nonexistent things are taken as existent things,
And thus the five sense objects manifest.
Nonexistent self is taken as existent self,
And thus there come the five defilements.
All the false appearances
Of the world and its inhabitants,
Manifesting as samsara,
Occur through the creative power.
When you fail to understand this,
False perception manifests.

13. All things come from nowhere,
Nowhere do they go,
And nowhere do they stay.
All is but the vast expanse of dharmatā.
For those who realize this, there is
The "utter openness and freedom of the triple world."
This is the Ati teaching of the vajra essence present of itself,
Arising in Samantabhadra's vast expanse.

14. Within the utterly immaculate enlightened mind,
There is no view, no object of a view.
There is not the slightest trace
Of something to be viewed or someone viewing.
There is no mind that meditates,
Nor anything on which to meditate.
Neither is there action or a subject acting.
Because it is spontaneously present,
There is not the slightest trace of a result to gain.

15. In what is nonexistent
There are no grounds to be traversed
And therefore from the first,
There is no path to follow.
Luminosity, as the supreme sphere,
Is present from the first.
Thus there are no mandalas for thought to generate,
No mantras and no recitations,
No empowerments, and no samayas.
Since no gradual dissolution is observed,
There is no perfection stage.
For the kāyas and the wisdoms, present from the first,
There is no causal process
Based on adventitious and conditioned circumstances.
If such a thing there were,
Primordial wisdom, not being self-­arisen,
Would have to be conditioned
And therefore subject to destruction.
How could it be defined
As unconditioned and spontaneous presence?

16. Therefore the ultimate expanse
Itself transcends causality.
The ten elements of tantra have no place therein.
This, I beg you, understand:
The nature of the mind,
True reality beyond all effort and all practice,
Is the stilling of conceptual elaborations
Of existence and of nonexistence.

The Enlightened Mind Is beyond Effortful Striving and Causality

Chapter 6

All Is Subsumed within the Enlightened Mind

1. Just as light is gathered in the sun's essential core,
All things are gathered in their root, the enlightened mind.
Phenomenal existence, impure, hallucinatory—
The world and its inhabitants—
When its wellspring and support
And the space of its abiding are examined,
Is found to be completely gathered in the mind,
Groundless, free and open from the very first.
Delusion and the absence of delusion both
Are gathered in the nature of the mind,
The vast immensity of the primordial expanse,
Transcending names and entities.

2. The wonderful display,
Pure self-­experience of awareness—
The buddhas and the buddha fields,
Primordial wisdoms and enlightened action—
This also is inseparably subsumed
Within the self-­arisen state.
Samsara and nirvana, all phenomenal existence,
Are the unconditioned, all-­encompassing
Enlightened mind,
Luminous and empty like the sun and sky.
Self-­arisen from the first,
It is the vast, immense, primordial expanse.

3. The nature of the mind
Is an unchanging vast expanse,
A realm of space.
Its multifarious display
Is the enlightened mind's creative power.
Since it has samsara and nirvana
Along with all the vehicles within its power,
All things are subjected
To its one sole state beyond activity.
There is nothing that is separate from it,
Nothing that exceeds its boundary.
There is no moving from the dharmatā, enlightened mind.

4. Since all arises in Samantabhadra,
This one spontaneous presence,
All things are subsumed therein without exception.
Peerless and sublime, it is the greatest of the great.
Samantabhadra, the expanse of ultimate reality,
Is like a king who gathers all things to himself.
He rules samsara and nirvana,
And they never part from him.

5. All things are Samantabhadra;
Not one thing is there that is not Samantabhadra.
As Samantabhadra, all is one in being neither good nor bad.
All existent things, all nonexistent things
Are one within the ultimate expanse.
Not stirring from spontaneous presence,
All things are one in their equality.

6. This one state where all things without exception manifest
Is the ultimate expanse of dharmatā.
It is a state beyond all action;
It cannot be achieved or striven for.
Practice done with effort
Is not different from the ultimate expanse.
What goal is there to strive for?
Where could it be achieved?

7. It is not something to be sought,
And it is not seen in meditation.
It is not a state to be achieved;
It does not come from somewhere else.
It does not come; it does not go:
It is the state of evenness, the dharmakāya.
It is subsumed within the vast expanse
Of the great sphere spontaneously perfect.

8a. The teachings of the śrāvakas,
Of the pratyekabuddhas, and the bodhisattvas
Are decisive on the nonexistence
Of both "I" and "mine."
Their common realization is the spacelike state
Of freedom from elaboration.
The supremely secret Atiyoga teaching
Is that one should rest in true reality—
Self-­arisen primal wisdom as it is—
Within the vast expanse
Where self and other cannot be distinguished.
The realizations gained in the small vehicles
Are thus subsumed in this supreme quintessence.

8b. The three classes of tantra—­Kriyā, Upa, Yoga—
Are all the same in holding that accomplishments
Occur when body, speech, and mind are purified
Through self-­visualization, through the deity,
Through concentration, and through making offerings.
According also to the sovereign
Secret teachings of the vajra peak,
Appearances and sounds are pure awareness,
The primordial deity.
When body, speech, and mind are fully cleansed,
Accomplishments will manifest.
The realizations of these tantras
Are thus subsumed in this supreme quintessence.

8c. There are also the three classes of Mahā, Anu, Ati.
[In Mahāyoga,] phenomenal existence,
The world and its inhabitants,
Is a pure field of male and female deities.
[In Anuyoga,] the inseparable union
Of primal wisdom and the ultimate expanse
Is said to be unmoving dharmatā,
Primordial wisdom self-­arisen.
In the supreme and most secret [Atiyoga],
All phenomena are pure,
The unproduced, immeasurable
Primordial expanse, the field of bliss.
Within this all-­pervading state,
Beyond both out and in,
There is nothing that is marked
By acceptance, by rejection, or by effortful exertion.
Everything is free and open in primordial infinity,
The vast expanse of dharmakāya.
All preceding realizations are subsumed
In this secret quintessence.

9. One is perfectly included,
All are perfectly included
In the vast expanse encompassing all things.
All is gathered and subsumed in great spontaneous presence,
Natural, primordial luminosity.

All Is Subsumed within the Enlightened Mind

Chapter 7

All Is Present Spontaneously and Primordially in the Enlightened Mind

1. The teachings on the enlightened mind,
By nature uncreated, present of itself,
Wherein all qualities subsist,
Are like the summit of the king of mountains,
High above all other teachings.
They are the sovereign supreme vehicle.

2. From the summit of the king of mountains,
Once it has been scaled,
The valleys down below can all be seen at once.
But from these valleys down below the peak cannot be seen.
So too, the vajra essence of the Atiyoga,
The highest peak of all the vehicles,
Surveys the goals of all these vehicles
But is to them invisible.
Spontaneous presence therefore is the peak,
The summit of all vehicles.

3. It is like a mighty wish-­fulfilling jewel,
Which, when people pray before it,
Lavishes upon them all that they might wish.
This is not the case with ordinary stones.
Since the vajra essence
Is the triple kāya present of itself,
When all is left just as it is,
Buddhahood is gained within the ultimate expanse.
This absence of exertion is itself
A sign of the superiority [of Ati teachings].
The lower vehicles are marked
By effort in accepting and rejecting,
And buddhahood is not achieved for many kalpas.
It is as though they are afflicted
By a strong debilitating sickness.

4a. Awareness, even and primordially spontaneous,
The enlightened mind,
The natural state just as it is,
Is the vast dharmatā.
By nature it is dharmakāya,
The vast primordial expanse of evenness.
Though present in all beings, it lies within the reach
Of only very few who have great fortune.
Left just as it is, it is achieved quite naturally
Within that very state.

4b. Its all-­pervasive luminosity
Is the sambhogakāya, present of itself.
Although it is in everyone,
Only few can see it.
When without exertion
You leave appearances just as they are,
It manifests.

4c. Its display, which never ceases,
Is the all-­pervading space of the nirmāṇakāya.
Present in all beings, it clearly manifests
In the arising of phenomena.
The array of wish-­fulfilling qualities
And of enlightened action
Is the pure space of awareness self-­cognizing.
It appears if, just like turbid water settling,
You rest within the natural limpid state.

5. Ultimate reality, primordially pure,
Is not found by searching.
The buddhas and the bodhisattvas
Dwell within this self-­arisen vast expanse.
Since this is present from before,
There is no need to gain it now, anew.
This great indwelling state
Is the immense expanse of dharmatā.
Do not strive for what is changeless, present of itself.

6. The primal ground, the natural ground,
The ground of the quintessence of enlightenment
Never waver from the natural condition.
Therefore do not stray from your awareness,
The expanse of luminosity.

7. Attainment comes when all is left in this condition.
For the unchanging, all-­pervading sovereign
Together with the five primordial wisdoms,
The five aspects of enlightened body,
The five aspects of enlightened speech,
The five aspects of enlightened mind,
The five enlightened qualities and activities
(In other words, primordial buddhahood)—
All are present of themselves
Within this endless and beginningless expanse.
Do not search for them elsewhere,
For in its luminous character
They are present from the very first.

8. Enlightenment itself,
The dharmakāya of the buddhas,
Is none other than immutable equality.
Since this is present of itself
Within the self-­arisen state,
Do not search for it and do not try to gain it.
Just let go completely of your hopes and fears.

9. The self-­arisen primal wisdom of all beings,
Uncreated, not achieved through effort,
Is present of itself as dharmakāya.
Therefore do not reach for it—
Accepting this, rejecting that.
Just rest in this expanse of ultimate reality.

10. Within the ultimate nature,
Even, present of itself,
Unwavering, devoid of thought,
There lies the ground's immense expanse
Where uncreated qualities are found.

11. This changeless, all-­pervading sovereign
Of the kāyas and the wisdoms
Is the self-­arisen, great, direct empowerment
In the manner of a king.
Therein phenomenal existence
(The world and all the beings it contains)
Is free and open from the first spontaneously.
There is no need for action or exertion—
By its nature it is present in and of itself.
Everything is present and unfolds
As great spontaneous presence.

All Is Present Spontaneously and Primordially in the Enlightened Mind

Chapter 8

There Is No Duality in the Enlightened Mind

1. Within the one expanse of self-­arisen primal wisdom,
All things are nondual in their final way of being.
The duality that ceaselessly appears
Is the display of the creative power.
Appearances and the imputing mind
Are both nondual enlightened mind.

2. Samsara and nirvana, all phenomenal existence,
Arise within the enlightened mind,
Awareness changeless and unmoving.
They are not to be rejected or acquired.
For yogis who are free
From apprehended and from apprehender,
Phenomena, appearing while not existing,
Are a matter of amazement and of laughter.

3. Though nonexistent while appearing,
Phenomena arise in all their various forms.
Though nonexistent in their emptiness,
Things are present everywhere.
Although there are no subjects apprehending
And no objects to be apprehended,
Beings cling to "I" and to the self of things.
Although they have no ground or root,
The stream of lives flows on continuously.
Although there's nothing to accept and nothing to reject,
Beings opt for happiness and flee from pain.

4a. Observing beings, I find that their perceptions
Are extremely strange.
What is not true they think is true,
And true indeed it seems to them.
The undeluded they take as deluded,
And utterly deluded does it seem to them.
That which is unreal they take as real,
And extremely real does it appear to them.
What is not so they take as being so,
And so indeed does it appear to them.
That which is not tenable they take as tenable,
And tenable indeed it seems to them.
Thus their minds are pointlessly deceived
By various trivial objects of their senses.
Awareness has become for them
A stream of conscious instants,
And thus in days and months and years
Their lives are all consumed.
They take as dual what is nondual,
And thus these wanderers deceive themselves.

4b. Yogis with pure karma
Turn within and watch their minds.
Awareness, groundless, unsupported, is beyond all naming.
It is not seen through being pointed at or talked about.
View and meditation are a seamless continuity.
And in this state of evenness, relaxed, immensely vast,
"Practice" is unknown,
For there is no distinction "in or out of session."
At all times there is just the state
Of seamless, spacious evenness.

4c. There are no reference points:
Bodies, sense objects, or other things.
There is but the all-­pervasive evenness
Of the expanse of space.
The inner element, therefore,
Is not to be regarded as a self.

5. When outwardly [these yogis] turn their gaze
At objects of their senses manifesting in the outer world,
Everything is evanescent, weightless, and transparent,
Phantom-­like, diaphanous, impossible to grasp.
They perceive, hear, recollect,
Know, taste, feel as never they had done before.
"What is this?" they ask. "Is this a dream?
Are these the visions of a lunatic?"
And they will simply laugh.

6. No notion is there now of friend or foe,
Of near or far, or of attachment or aversion.
There's no division into day and night
But just a single, equal, all-­pervasive state of evenness.
Samsara with its apprehension
Of phenomena endowed with features is dispelled,
And this is called the state
Of self-­arisen primordial wisdom.
Because there are no thoughts,
The meshes of accepting and rejecting,
Of things to be removed together with their antidotes,
Are now transcended.
Through such a realization,
Nondual wisdom is made manifest.
Self-­arisen Samantabhadra's wisdom mind is reached.
The level of phenomenal exhaustion,
From which there is no possibility of falling back, is reached.

7. Without the realization of equality
Within the self-­arisen state,
You may talk of nonduality,
Just clinging to the words,
And place your trust in mind's analysis
And in a blankness where there's nothing to be seen.
This is indeed the very essence of wrong understanding,
The dark abyss of ignorance.

8. And so, within that self-­arisen state
Devoid of movement and of change,
Train yourself in sovereign nonduality,
Wherein all thoughts are worn away.
The three worlds thus will be completely free and open.
Samsara and nirvana will be indivisible.
The fortress of the dharmakāya, completely pure like space,
The nature that arises from within,
Surpassing all analogies, will manifest.

9. As long as you fixate on different entities,
Asserting "this" or "that,"
Remaining in duality,
You're trapped in the delusion of "yourself and others."
But when you're free of bias
And make no distinctions, saying "this" or "that,"
Everything is even in the state
Of an equality beyond all reference.
As Vajrasattva said,
This is to realize nonduality.

There Is No Duality in the Enlightened Mind

Chapter 9

The Decisive Certainty That All Phenomena Are the Enlightened Mind

1. In the one expanse,
By nature a supreme immensity,
Is found the "nail" of the enlightened mind,
Commensurate with space itself.
Focus on its vital point and strip it to its essence.
It is the greatest of the great,
The vast mind of Samantabhadra,
By whose nature all is gathered
In the surge of its immense horizon.
And in this single vast expanse,
Realization and the lack of it,
Freedom and the lack of it
Are all a nondual great equality.

2. A garuda with its wings full grown
While still within the egg
Glides in the vault of heaven as soon as it is hatched.
It soars with mastery above the vast abyss
And overwhelms the nāgas.
Yogis graced by fortune
Realize perfectly the vajra essence,
Peak of all the vehicles.
They overwhelm the lower vehicles
And soar above samsara's vast abyss.

3. The openness and freedom of all things,
Their great state of equality,
Is unacceptable to those who strive
According to the law of cause and fruit.
But it makes sense to those who understand
The meaning of unwavering equality,
Expounded in the supreme vehicle.

4. Everything is supreme bliss,
The vast expanse of spacelike dharmakāya.
And in that vast expanse of dharmakāya,
There is nothing that's not free and open.
The self-­arisen kāya of the vajra essence
Is the very nature of phenomena.
When in the yogis' bodies
(The product of habitual tendencies)
This essence has been mastered,
And when their bodies of existence
Are relinquished in the bardo states of life or death,
These yogis are inseparably united
With the single sole awareness,
Attaining thus the kingdom
Of the level of spontaneous presence.
Their emanations without limit then pour forth
And labor for all beings unimpeded.
This is the domain of yogis
Who are "carried without effort on the wind."
This makes no sense to those upon the lower vehicles.
Only Ati rightly sets it forth.
It is the crucial point of the result.

5. The display of birth occurs within the unborn state,
But the deluded mind ascribes to it
The character of causes and results.
The Ati teachings say that it is free of causes and conditions.
Though unacceptable to those who practice lower vehicles,
This is correct and is a crucial point.

6. The state of buddhas and the state of beings
Are indivisible.
To apprehend them differently
In terms of two realities, samsara and nirvana,
Is the attitude of the deluded mind.
The Atiyoga teaching that they are not two,
Though unacceptable to those who practice lower vehicles,
Is correct and is a crucial point.

7. Whether or not you realize it,
All is the state of openness and freedom.
To think that this arises through your realization
Is an enemy that hinders you.
Ati says that realization and the lack of realization
Are a single state of evenness.
Though unacceptable to those who practice lower vehicles,
This is correct and is a crucial point.

8. To claim that the inexpressible cannot be realized
Without special methods that reveal it
Is but the attitude of fools.
The Ati teachings show
That it is never separate from the ultimate.
Though unacceptable to those who practice lower vehicles,
This is correct and is a crucial point.

9. To say the state of great perfection—
Limitless, unfathomable,
All-­pervasive from the very first—­cannot be reached
Is but the attitude of fools.
The Atiyoga teaching that it is both sharp and limitless,
Though not acceptable to those who practice lower vehicles,
Is correct and is a crucial point.

10. Because within the one sole sphere
The order is reversed,
There is no hope or fear regarding the result.
For there is just a vast expanse commensurate with space.
It is a great abyss, the mind of the Victorious Ones,
Immense as space itself.
There is nothing to reject and nothing to accomplish.
There is but the vast immensity, the one sole sphere,
Which, being free and open from the first,
Transcends both realization and the lack of it.
Upon this spacelike path devoid of action,
Yogis are at ease.

11. Primordially the state of buddhahood,
Awareness is devoid of all objective reference.
It does not wander in samsara;
It transcends the whole foundation of delusion.
No one is there who has been,
And no one is there who can be, deluded.
All things are the dharmadhātu's single, luminous expanse.
They are not different in the past or future.
They are a skylike vast expanse
Primordially uncontrived, spontaneously present.
Samsara from the very first is pure.

12. Do not opt for freedom or embrace nirvana.
In the changeless vast expanse,
There has never been samsara or nirvana
To be rejected or adopted, to be feared or hoped for.
They are the vast immensity
Of enlightenment's primordial ground.
They are but names and are, in truth,
Beyond both indication and description.
Clearly certain that samsara does not mean delusion,
That nirvana is not freedom,
Let no one strive, let no one change or alter anything.

13. Awareness without breadth or height
Is without limits, falls to no extreme.
And so hold back from aiming at it.
Awareness, free of agent and of action,
Free of coming and of going,
Entails no lapse of time, no remedy.
Therefore do not cling to it or strive.
If there is deliberate focus,
This will be the cause of bondage.
Therefore do not grasp at anything
But let it go in evenness.

14a. It makes no difference if phenomena
Are or are not free and open from the very first.
It makes no difference if the fundamental nature
Is or is not pure intrinsically.
It makes no difference if the mind itself
Is or is not free of all elaboration.
It makes no difference if, within the nature uncontrived,
There is or is not anything existent.

14b. It makes no difference if by nature samsara and nirvana
Are or are not a duality.
It makes no difference whether thoughts and words
Are or are not passed beyond.
It makes no difference if delusions of negation or assertion
Do or do not fall apart.
It makes no difference if the view that should be realized
Is or is not recognized.

14c. It makes no difference
If you do or do not meditate upon the dharmatā.
It makes no difference whether you examine it or not—
It is not something you can take or else reject.
It makes no difference whether you attain or not
The fundamental nature, the result.
It makes no difference whether you progress or not
Upon the grounds and paths.

14d. It makes no difference whether you are free or not
Of all your obscurations.
It makes no difference whether or not the dharmatā
Is gained through the generation and perfection stages.
It makes no difference whether you achieve or not
The fruit of liberation.
It makes no difference whether or not
You wander in the six migrations of samsara.

14e. It makes no difference whether or not
Your nature is spontaneously present.
It makes no difference whether or not
You're bound by dualistic clinging to permanence or to annihilation.
It makes no difference whether or not
You reach the realization of the dharmatā.
It makes no difference whether or not
You follow in the footsteps of the masters of the past.

15. No matter what may happen,
Though earth and heaven be upturned,
You experience nothing but the bare and open state
Of groundless openness, relaxed and even.
All things are unstable, hazy, evanescent, nebulous—
And like a lunatic you act without duality of hope and fear.
View and meditation—­all are merged without division.
The asserting, purpose-­driven mind collapses.
You are no longer trammeled by ambition,
There are no goals that you now strive to gain.

16. All that happens you allow to happen.
Whatever may appear, you allow it to appear.
Whatever may arise, you allow it to arise.
Whatever there may be, you allow it to exist.
If there's anything at all, you let it be;
And if there's nothing, you allow it not to be.

17. Unpredictable is your behavior
For awareness is preeminent.
You take no account of virtue or nonvirtue,
For you are in a bare and open state
Beyond the snare of philosophic doctrines.
Eating, walking, lying down, or sitting—­by day and night,
You're in a state of all-­pervasive evenness,
Equality, the dharmatā.
No deities to worship, no spirits to drive out,
No Dharma to be meditated—
This is the simple, ordinary state.
You, a sovereign free of all contrivance and pretension,
Are in an all-­embracing evenness.
Relaxing in equality, you now have found
The one and only state spontaneously present,
Not now achieved, because primordially accomplished.
How pleasant to be free of striving and exertion!

18. The view has no foundation and there is no meditation.
There is no action, no result to be achieved.
Since all are thus encompassed by the undivided equal state,
There is no need to strive.
Bliss lies in freedom from the wide and narrow.

19. When there is no wishing,
The notion of achievement ceases.
When there's nothing to abandon,
You go beyond the bondage of relying on an antidote.
All there is, whatever it may be,
Does not exist, nor does it not exist.
Whatever is perceived, no matter what arises,
All inescapably subsides.

20. There is nothing that's not free and open,
Free and open from the first, and of itself.
When certainty is reached
That all things, all together, are insubstantial,
They pass beyond the status of phenomena.

21. Within the vast expanse, the vast expanse,
Within the great and vast expanse,
I, Longchen Rabjam, am immersed in the expanse,
The great abyss of luminosity.
I dwell within the one, nondual immensity—
Immensity of bliss.
I, Natsok Rangdröl, have attained the dharmatā,
The state of the exhaustion of phenomena,
Unchanging, present of itself,
The summit of all perfect aspiration.

22. All you who follow after me
Bring everything together thus
In one immense, primordial, all-­enveloping expanse.
And surely you will gain Samantabhadra's everlasting realm.

The Decisive Certainty That All Phenomena Are the Enlightened Mind

Chapter 10

The Enlightened Mind Does Not Stir from the Dharmatā

1. The enlightened mind, by nature pure from the beginning,
Is dharmatā, which does not come or go
And is beyond acceptance and rejection.
The dharmatā is the expanse of space
And is not gained through effort.
When you settle in it naturally,
The sun and moon of luminosity arise.

2. If you do not block the objects of your senses,
If you do not hold your mind in check,
If you do not stray from the spontaneous equality
Of your natural condition, you will reach the wisdom
Of Samantabhadra, vast immensity.

3a. When thoughts do not unfold and dissipate,
There is a natural, pure limpidity—
It's like an ocean, limpid, smooth, unmoving.
It is the dharmatā, deep luminosity,
The state of self-­arisen, primordial wisdom
In which you rest, where hope and fear
Do not arise and you are not caught up in them.

3b. Indescribable and free of mind's entanglement,
The plain and natural state is uncontrived and unalloyed.
It is the space where everything dissolves,
The dharmatā devoid of attributes.
There is neither meditation nor something to be meditated.
Therefore dullness, agitation both are dissipated naturally,
And the self-­arisen state appears.

3c. Not eliminated through elimination,
Thoughts are themselves awareness's creative power.
There are no distinctions, differentiations, in the dharmatā.
The dharmatā is therefore not achieved through practice.
Arising as it does within the ultimate expanse of dharmatā,
Samsara is not spurned.
Rather, through the pure yoga
Linked with the creative power of this vast expanse,
You see samsara as primordial wisdom self-­arisen.

3d. Appearances and mind are from the first
The natural state of dharmatā.
Unmoving concentration
Manifests in a continuous stream.
This is the vajra peak,
Samantabhadra's sublime mind.
Through meditation on the fact that all things
Without any difference
Are the skylike supreme, spacious dharmatā,
The supreme, wondrous sovereign, primordially unlimited,
Is spontaneously discovered.

4a1. Within this state, where nothing is adopted or rejected,
The primordial stream of luminosity
Immediate and unmediated
Is present of itself.
This is the very nature of samsara and nirvana,
The supreme state of dharmadhātu.
This skylike vast expanse,
Unwavering and indescribable,
Is from the first and by its nature
Present in all beings.

4a2. Phenomena appearing separate from oneself
Are a delusion of the mind.
The will to meditate, to make an effort
Is a delusion of the mind.
All delusion is the natural state of dharmatā,
The purview of equality.
In this vast expanse
Of the unmoving nature pure from the beginning,
There's nothing to be done, no effort to be made;
There is no remaining and no not remaining
In the state of meditative evenness.

4b1. Unchanging dharmatā, spontaneously present,
Is free of object, thought, and agitation.
If you look at it repeatedly
With awareness self-­cognizing,
You see that there is nothing to be viewed.
Awareness that cannot be viewed
Is the direct, unmediated view.

4b2. Not meditated on, awareness
Is devoid of anything to keep or to reject.
If repeatedly you meditate thereon,
You see that there is nothing to be meditated.
Awareness that cannot be meditated
Is direct, unmediated meditation.

4b3. The fundamental nature is nondual.
It is beyond acceptance and rejection.
If you act on it repeatedly,
You see that there is nothing to be acted on.
Awareness that you cannot act upon
Is direct, unmediated action.

4b4. Spontaneous presence, beyond all hope and fear,
Is of itself primordial.
When repeatedly you struggle to accomplish it,
You see that it is something
That can never be accomplished.
Awareness that can never be accomplished
Is the direct result unmediated.

4c. Within the state of evenness,
You do not conceive of objects.
You do not seize on them as mind.
Stilled are the arising and involvement with
Your hopes and fears.
Mind and objects stay within that state of evenness,
Not stirring from the vast expanse of dharmatā.
This is the direct, unmediated resting
In the absence of objective reference
With regard to things endowed with attributes.
Because of the unmediated directness
Of primordial and nondual awareness,
Samsara and nirvana are inseparable;
They are the state of great perfection
Where all things are encompassed
By the state of evenness,
Without some being taken, others spurned.

4d. Things and nonthings—­both are equal
In the ultimate expanse.
Buddhas and beings—­both are equal
In the ultimate expanse.
Relative and ultimate—­both are equal
In the ultimate expanse.
Defects and good qualities—
All are equal in the ultimate expanse.
Zenith, nadir, main and intermediary directions—
All are equal in the ultimate expanse.
No matter what displays occur therefore
Within the self-­arisen state,
All arises equal in the moment of arising,
Neither good nor bad.
What need is there to take some things and spurn the rest
Or alter them with antidotes?
In their remaining, all remain as equal,
Neither good nor bad.
Whatever now arises in your mind,
Relax within its natural disappearance.
In their subsiding, all subside as equal,
Neither good nor bad.
Don't run after thoughts, accepting some, rejecting others,
Promoting their proliferation.

5. Within the enlightened mind, the ground's expanse,
The way in which all things arise
As its creative power and its display
Is unpredictable.
Though things arise as equal, they yet arise
Within the vast primordial expanse.
Though they arise unequal, they yet arise
Within equality's ultimate expanse.
Though they remain as equal, they yet remain
Within the natural state of dharmatā.
Though they remain unequal, they yet remain
Within equality's ultimate expanse.
Though they subside as equal, they yet subside
Within the space of primal wisdom self-­arisen.
Though they subside unequal, they yet subside
Within equality's ultimate expanse.

6a. All things are primordial equality,
Awareness self-­arisen.
Therefore from the very first,
There's no arising and no nonarising
In the ultimate expanse.
From the very first,
There's no remaining and no nonremaining
In the ultimate expanse.
From the very first,
There is no freedom and no lack of freedom
In the ultimate expanse.

6b. Within awareness, the unwavering state of great equality,
When things arise, they arise quite naturally,
Keeping to their natural condition.
Remaining, they remain quite naturally,
Keeping to their natural condition.
Subsiding, they subside quite naturally,
Keeping to their natural condition.

6c. Within awareness, changeless,
Free of all conceptual movement,
All arising is primordial arising;
All remaining is primordial remaining;
All subsiding is primordial subsiding.
All is of a spacelike nature.

6d. Consciousness arises, stays, subsides—
It arises and subsides in seamless continuity.
Being seamless, it is not divided into cause and its effect.
Because there is no cause and no effect,
There is no chasm of samsara.
This being so, how can you go astray?

6e. Samantabhadra's vast expanse
Is primordially unchanging.
Vajrasattva's vast expanse
Is free of change and movement.
Buddhahood is but a name for just the recognition
Of the fundamental nature.

6f. If you realize this, there's nothing to adopt or spurn
And all things are encompassed by the single dharmatā.
As in a golden island, no distinctions can be made.
Things are untouched by conceptual extremes;
All deviations and all obscurations are resolved,
And thus there is no chasm of samsara.
Without exertion, without effort,
The three kāyas are spontaneously, completely present
In the enlightened mind.
To call them inconceivable, ineffable
Is nothing more than words.

6g. When appearances are left alone,
Awareness self-­arisen is clearly present,
Unobscured and open,
Unimpeded, free of out or in.
If you stay without contrivance in this natural state,
It is clearly present as great dharmatā.
Relax your mind and body deeply
In a carefree state, at ease,
Serenely like a person who has nothing more to do.
Neither tense nor loose,
Let mind and body rest in comfort.

6h. However beings may be, they are within their nature.
However beings may stay, they stay within their nature.
However beings may move, they move within their nature.
In the vast space of enlightenment,
By nature, there's no going and no coming.
The bodies of victorious buddhas
Neither go nor come.

6i. However speech occurs, it occurs within its nature.
However expression occurs, it occurs within its nature.
The enlightened mind is, by its nature,
Free of speech and of expression.
The speech of the Victorious Ones, past, present, and to come,
Is free of speech and of expression.

6j. However reflection may occur, it does so in its nature.
However thoughts occur, they do so in their nature.
The enlightened mind is from the first
Without reflection, without thought.
The minds of all Victorious Ones, past, present, and to come,
Are free of thought and of reflection.

6k. Without existing, it appears as anything at all,
And thus it is nirmāṇakāya.
It enjoys itself,
And thus it is sambhogakāya.
It has no substantial ground,
And thus it is the dharmakāya.
It is the expanse, spontaneously present
Of the triple kāya, the result.

6l. Within the vast expanse
Of the enlightened mind,
No thoughts occur, no recollections.
When all such attributes of ordinary cognition
Do not stir within the mind,
This is the condition of the one sole buddhahood.

6m. The luminous character of the enlightened state
Is like the sky's immense expanse.
To be devoid of thoughts and recollections
Is the supreme meditation.
The luminous character of awareness in itself
Is without movement, free of all contrivance.
Free of thought and mental action,
The natural state, the dharmatā,
Throughout the three times is devoid
Of movement and of change.
If there are no moving and unfolding thoughts,
This is supreme meditation.

6n. That which dwells in suchness
Is the sublime state of mind,
The one sole state of buddhahood
Devoid of every attribute.
It is the unwavering dharmadhātu,
Which at once transcends fixating thought.
It is by nature the supremely vast expanse of wisdom
Of Victorious Ones.
When you abandon all contrivances
Whereby the mind and body are encumbered,
There comes a natural state of relaxation.
Thoughts and memories occur,
But if you do not waver
From the ground left as it is—
The state of dharmatā,
All is but a vast immensity,
The wisdom of Samantabhadra.

6o. Do not hold within; do not project outside.
Do not be tightly tense or loose.
Just as it is, the unrestricted natural state
Is of its own accord attained.
If within the vast expanse—
Unmoving, limitlessly spread, transcending measurement—
Self-­arising thoughts and recollections naturally subside,
This is indeed the spacelike wisdom mind of Vajrasattva.

6p. If in the expanse devoid of all contrivance
You remain without distraction,
Though thoughts and memories engage with objects,
The state of dharmatā is there.
But if you try with vigorous purpose to contrive
The dharmatā, which in itself
Is free of thought and vast like space,
It will be trapped inside conceptual attributes.
And though you may spend day and night in practice,
All is an entangling obsession.
The Buddha said that it resembles
The samādhi of the gods.
And so it is important that,
Without distraction but without concerted effort,
Your mind rest naturally free
Of all exertion and fixation.

6q. Primordial wisdom self-­arisen
Has no boundaries, no extremes.
And so you cannot point it out
With words like "It is this."
Within its nature, all elaborations cease.
So leave the mind's activity aside
And train yourself in what is meant
By groundless vast immensity.

6r. The one sole dharmatā, primordial wisdom self-­arisen,
Is the one sole view devoid of all elaboration.
It is the one sole meditation free of keeping and rejecting,
Free of going, free of coming.
It is the one sole action free of all activity
Of taking and rejecting.
It is the one sole fruit devoid of the duality
Of spurning and acquiring.
These are the states of self-­arisen spontaneous presence.

6s. Phenomenal existence, samsara and nirvana,
The world and all the beings it contains—
None of this has ever stirred
From the primordial state of dharmatā,
Primordial wisdom self-­arisen.
Understand therefore that all things are the dharmatā,
The ground left as it is.

6t. Regarding all the things
Appearing as the objects of the senses,
Do not think "It's thus that on them I will settle."
Rest instead spontaneously in the natural state
Without your thoughts unfolding and dissolving.
You will naturally remain in the expanse
Of the equality of dharmatā.

6u. Neither drawing in your sense powers
Nor letting your eyes wander
To what appears as objects in their rich variety,
Not thinking of yourself,
Not having thoughts concerning others,
Stay in luminosity,
Within the even state, supremely vast.

6v. Within the state of primal self-­arisen wisdom
Of the equality of all things,
Wherein there is no out or in and nothing in between,
A lofty and expansive mind
Devoid of thoughts unfolding and dissolving
Is experienced as though it merged with space.
There manifests a concentration that is free
Of all elaborations—­bliss and luminosity.

7a. In the ground left as it is,
The state of the unmoving dharmatā,
There is no out, no in,
No conceptual elaboration
Of apprehender-­apprehended.
There is no mind that fixes
On an object different from itself.
Thus there are no things to apprehend;
There is no clinging to the appearance
Of the world and beings.
There is no place within samsara
Where you might take birth,
For all is similar to space itself.
Inwardly, because you do not take your mind
As being your "self," there is no apprehender—
All samsaric thoughts are stilled.
That which causes birth within samsara is completely cut,
And all things then are similar to space.
Outwardly and inwardly,
No hallucinatory phenomena are found.
The state of dharmakāya is attained.
You reach the level of phenomenal exhaustion—
Going and coming are no more.
Everything is but an infinite expanse,
Samantabhadra's field.
You have attained the supreme palace of the dharmakāya.

7b. If awareness in the present moment
Does not wander from the ground,
And if you grow familiar with this,
Subsequent existence in samsara ceases.
You will be free of action and habitual tendencies
That cause rebirth.
You will have decisive certainty
Regarding causes and effects,
Proclaiming that samsara and nirvana are now equal.
You will reach the essence of enlightenment
That does not dwell in peace or in existence.
Therefore in the present moment,
It is vital to distinguish this awareness
From one-­pointed calm abiding.
Such is the teaching of the Natural Great Perfection.

7c. When you stray from the awareness state,
Cogitation happens
And samsara with the law of cause and fruit occurs.
Without decisive certainty in its regard,
Beings, thus mistaken, wander ever lower.
The supremely secret Great Perfection therefore says
That if you do not wander from the ultimate expanse,
The appearances of its creative power
Sink back into the ground,
And without stirring from the dharmatā
You rest within equality.

7d. Within this state, there is no cause and no effect;
There is no effortful activity.
There is no view and so forth to be meditated.
There is no center, no periphery, and no duality.
All is thus negated.
But when creative power strays outward from awareness,
The manifold display of all phenomenal existence Appears in every way.
So never say that there’s no cause and no effect.
Conditioned things dependently arise,
They are past numbering and inconceivable.
The hallucinations of samsara
And even states of peace and bliss
Are countless and beyond the mind’s imagining.
Everything dependently arises
From the gathering of causes and conditions.

7e. When you appraise the fundamental state of things,
There's nothing to be found.
When you use it as the path, not stirring from this state,
There's nothing to be seen.
This is regarded as the moment of the [dharmakāya] wisdom.
You have perfectly attained the fundamental state of things
And therefore are unstained by anything at all.

8. This great chasm of defilements, actions, and propensities
Has no support.
It is but a magical display of illusory appearances.
Free yourself from it, I beg you.
Be convinced regarding causes and results.
To this end, there's nothing greater than this teaching.
Therefore it is vital not to wander
From the state of dharmadhātu.
Vast and deep, this is a counsel from my heart.
"All is," "All is not," "All exists," "Nothing exists"—
It's so important to transcend them all.

The Enlightened Mind Does Not Stir from the Dharmatā

Chapter 11

All Experiences Are Pure Like Space

1. All things are the one enlightened mind,
Commensurate with space.
And yet, because of dualistic clinging,
You are deluded in samsara with its causes and results.
But such hallucinatory appearances have no support;
They are but magical illusions.
So disregard them when you meet with them,
Keeping to a state in which they leave no trace.

2. When something you don't want occurs,
You have the attitude of wanting to be rid of it.
You are angry and displeased.
You are jealous, irritated, spiteful.
You are weary and in anguish,
You have pain and discontent.
You are afraid of death, rebirth, and all the rest.
When all this happens, recognize it
As the display of awareness's creative power.
Do not reject it, do not try to cleanse it.
Do not transform it or accept it.
Do not watch it, do not meditate on it.
Stay rather without effort
In the one sole natural state of evenness,
Free of thoughts unfolding and dissolving.
It will vanish without trace, and from within,
The spacious, pure expanse of mind
Will sharply, clearly, limpidly appear.

3. When appearances are encountered
In unlimited awareness,
Beyond both being and nonbeing,
And without point of reference,
If you rest without contrivance
And do not grasp at such appearances,
Acceptance and rejection vanish,
Traceless in this state
Where there's no [thought of] openness and freedom.
An experience without clinging and fixation
Wells up from within.
This is the vast, primordial expanse:
Awareness as it is.

4. In just the same way,
When you have the joy
Of gaining what your heart desires,
Happiness is yours.
Companions, pleasant conversation, riches,
A delightful dwelling place and region—
When, through all such circumstances,
A joyful state of mind arises,
Recognize its nature. Rest freely in its natural state.
You will be within the uncontrived primordial expanse
Spontaneously present.

5. When, while sitting down or walking,
You are in a neutral, ordinary state,
Neither joyful nor depressed,
Do not indulge in it, do not reject it.
Recognize its nature in the moment it appears.
Not different from the natural state of dharmatā,
This is said to be an ignorance or dullness
That subsides into great luminosity.

6. At night or other times,
Though you be stupefied by sleep,
You lie within the natural condition,
Free of thoughts unfolding and dispersing.
Gross perceptions therefore disappear
And with them their perceiver.
Then subtle and extremely subtle thoughts subside
And also that which apprehends them.
The mind then rests aware within a state
Of evenness devoid of concepts.
It dwells within its nature—
Thoughts do not arise, and there is no engaging with them.
There is neither hope nor fear.
This is the point when all thoughts sink into the dharmadhātu.
Therefore it is called "subsiding of samsara in nirvana."

7. Even sleep itself is but the self-­arisen
Primordial expanse.
Awareness's creative power is stilled,
Absorbed into the ground, the ultimate expanse.
All cognitions that lay hold of its display
Come naturally to stillness.
This is the state devoid of action,
The state of self-­arisen primordial wisdom.

8. And therefore all your attitudes
Of wanting or not wanting or indifference,
As well as the three poisons that appear
Through awareness's creative power as its display—
All occur within the ultimate expanse,
All arise within the ultimate expanse.
Since they subsist within the ultimate expanse,
Not stirring from it in the slightest,
Do not fall into the meshes
Of contriving or transforming these same attitudes.
It is crucial that you recognize this ultimate expanse.
As soon as you are settled there,
These attitudes come naturally to stillness.
They naturally vanish and subside.

9. Even the defilements, actions, and habitual tendencies
Arise as a display through awareness's creative power.
Even antidotes and virtuous acts—­
the path of liberation—
Manifest as a display arising through creative power.
Both are a display primordially arising through creative power.
Recognize therefore their nature.
Rest within it uncontrivedly—­this is indeed a crucial point.
Both are equal in rapidity and movement,
Equal in their stirring in the ground.
Occurring through conditions, they're compounded
And are not beyond dependent origin.
It is important thus to rest within the natural state,
To leave them as they are,
And to be certain with regard to cause and fruit.

10. This is the very summit of the supreme secret vehicle.
It is most secret. Do not speak of it to those of lesser mind.
For they will mar the quintessential teachings
By superimposition or depreciation.
Understanding falsely, they will wander from its view.
Those who breach the door of secrecy
Will fall to lower destinies that have no end.
Therefore the heritage of the most secret sovereign vehicle
Should be entrusted and revealed
To sublime beings of excellent good fortune.

11. In short, whatever circumstances may occur—
A sense object or state of mind—
Do not apply an antidote.
Do not strive to rid yourself of it.
For the key point of awareness is the natural state,
The unaltered state, the state left as it is.

12. All happiness and suffering
Are ways in which awareness manifests.
If you regard them dualistically,
As things to take or to reject,
Then you are bound within existence.
All objects that appear are equal—
They do no more than manifest to faculties of sense.
All mental states are equal—
They are no more than thoughts that in awareness leave no trace.
Both are equal in immediate presence—
They do no more than bind you in acceptance and rejection.
Truly in their final status they are equal—
They are no more than things appearing groundlessly.
In their distinctiveness the objects of the senses are all equal—
They are no more than traceless when they're broken down.
All mental states are equal in the way they are perceived—
They are no more than space when they're investigated.
Mind and objects are not two—
They're no more than the pure and intervening air.
Those who know this are the scions of Samantabhadra.
They are vidyādharas upon the highest ground,
The supreme heirs of the Victorious Ones.

13. Therefore all phenomena are equal—
Equal in existing, equal in their not existing,
Equal in appearing, equal in their emptiness,
Equal in their truth, and equal in their falsity.
Abandon therefore all fixation, all that fetters you—
Things to be abandoned, their counteracting antidotes,
And all concerted effort.
Grow, become commensurate with great equality,
Free of all objective reference.
Grow, become commensurate with great awareness,
Free of ordinary mind.
Grow, become commensurate with great equality and purity,
Free of any flaw.

All Experiences Are Pure Like Space

Chapter 12

Phenomena Are Primordially Open and Free within the Enlightened Mind

1a. Everything is free and open in the enlightened mind.
There are no phenomena that are not free and open.

1b. Samsara is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in primordial purity.
Nirvana is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in spontaneous perfection.
The appearing world is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in its groundlessness and rootlessness.
Living beings are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the essence of enlightenment.
The elaborations of the mind are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in their lack of limits and extremes.
The absence of elaboration too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in its unborn purity.

2. Happiness is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the all-­pervasive dharmatā.
Suffering is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the ground's immense equality.
Indifference is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the spacelike dharmakāya.
Purity is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the emptiness of the ground's purity.
Impurity is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the supreme state of utter openness and freedom.

3. The grounds and paths are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending generation and perfection.
View and meditation are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the absence of acceptance and rejection.
Action too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the vast space of Samantabhadra.
The result is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending hope and fear.
Samaya too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in great dharmatā.
Recitation, mantra repetition
Both are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending all expression.
Concentration too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending the domain of contemplation.

4. Existence, nonexistence
Both are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending such extremes.
Permanence, discontinuity
Both are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in their groundlessness and rootlessness.
Wholesomeness is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending thought and aim.
Unwholesomeness is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in transcending thought and partiality.
Karmic deeds are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in not staining.
Defilements too are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the absence both of bondage and of freedom.
Habitual tendencies are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the absence of foundation.
The full ripening of acts is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the absence of a basis of experience.

5. Antidotes are free and open from the very first,
Free and open in there being nothing to abandon.
Acceptance and rejection—­neither has existence;
Both are free and open in a vast spacelike immensity.
Freedom too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in there being no bondage.
Freedom's absence too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in there being no freedom and no bondage.
Relaxation too is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in there being nothing to relax.
Leaving as it is is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in that there is nothing to leave as it is.

6. In brief, then, all things that appear or can appear
And all that is beyond such things and does not or cannot appear
Are free and open from the very first
Within the ultimate expanse.
No one therefore needs to strive
To make them free and open now.

7. Though you may strive therein, it is to no avail.
So do not do it! Do not do it!
Do not try with effort to achieve it!
Do not watch them! Do not watch them!
Do not watch your thoughts!
Do not meditate! Do not meditate!
Do not meditate on mind!
Do not investigate! Do not investigate!
Do not investigate the objects of the senses and the mind!
Do not labor! Do not labor!
Do not labor for the fruit with hope and fear!
Do not reject! Do not reject!
Do not reject defilements and activities!
Do not adopt! Do not adopt!
Do not adopt the pure phenomena!
Do not fetter! Do not fetter!
Do not fetter your own mind!

8. All things break down together;
No "object" is there found in anything.
There is no plan of action and there's nothing to be done.
No conceptual target is there to identify.
The ground breaks down, the path breaks down,
And the result breaks down.
Excellence and defects, deviation and decline—
The slightest trace of these cannot be found.
All is even, utterly without existence,
Nonexistent from the first—
Phenomenal existence is reduced to nothing.
Samsara and nirvana both break down.
They're nonexistent in the ultimate expanse.
So what is there and what is going on?
There is nothing to be pointed out by saying "It is this."
So what is "you" and where indeed is "I"?
These are but traces of a past that is no more.
And who is there who might do anything about it?
Ha ha! It's so amazing that it makes me laugh!

9. The delusion of phenomenal existence,
The world together with the beings it contains, breaks down.
Day and night clear naturally away, primordially away;
Into space, they clear away.
Days and dates are cleared away;
Years and months, whole kalpas, clear away.
One is cleared and all is cleared away;
Virtue and nonvirtue are all cleared away.
Samsara and nirvana, the basis of delusion,
Clear away into the ground's primordial, vast expanse.
And the so-­called primordial expanse,
Convention of the ordinary mind, is likewise cleared away.
So what is to be done and what is there to strive for?
What purpose is there to pursue?
There are no ties of the desiring mind.
There is just space, a great and supreme wonder.
The nature [realized by] this beggar free of Dharma
Is like this and is nothing more!

10. The precious foundation is the citadel of space.
It is without support; it's free and open from the very first
And present of itself within awareness.
The three worlds of existence,
The world and all the beings it contains,
Are therefore open and free in that great state
That is devoid of all objective reference.

11. Those bound by taking sides where there are no such sides
Do not know the nature of phenomena
And by this they are damaged.
They are confused, they are deluded, they are so deluded!
Though there is no delusion,
These beings are deluded
And perceive [samsara's] great abyss.

12. Delusion and the absence of delusion
Are but the vast expanse of the enlightened mind.
From the very first, in the enlightened mind,
There never was delusion nor the freedom from delusion.
You are fettered by your clinging
To what arises as enlightened mind's display.
But since there is no bondage and no freedom,
There is neither mind nor object.
Do not be misled by taking for existent
What does not exist.

13a. Awareness, free and open,
Is the state of primal buddhahood.
Therefore do not snare it in the clinging and fixating
Of the trap of Dharma.
Pure in every way, it is the vast expanse
Devoid of objects of the senses from the very first.
It is the vast space of enlightenment,
The ground and root of great bliss, equal to the sky.
It is the primal nature where samsara is not possible.

13b. There are no edges and no corners in the one sole sphere.
To see identity or difference is the mind's delusion.
There are no causes and conditions that relate
To self-­arisen primal wisdom.
To claim so is to go upon samsara's path:
It is a blockage to enlightenment.
Spontaneous presence is impartial and beyond extremes.
To think of it one-­sidedly
In terms of ontological extremes
Is but the māra of conceit.
Unceasing emptiness is substanceless and has no features.
To label it existent, nonexistent, empty, or appearing
Is simply the distorted mind.
Forsake the snare, therefore, of your one-­sided claims,
Knowing that spontaneous presence
Is like space; it has no partiality.

13c. Whatever may arise in the six consciousnesses—
Sights seen, sounds heard, and all the rest—
They are the vast expanse of luminosity,
Beyond all differentiation.
They are the vast expanse, primordially free and open, of equality.
Be utterly convinced of this!

13d. [Awareness] is the ultimate expanse,
For all appearances occur
Within this one state of equality.
It is the ground, for it gives rise to every excellence.
It is the vast expanse,
For in it all arises naturally
Free of differentiation.
It is the enlightened mind, for it arises
As the essence of everything that manifests.
Understand that, like space,
It is pure from the beginning.

13e. Primordial wisdom self-­arisen,
The ground's immense expanse,
Is pure in being primordially unstained,
Untainted by samsara.
It is all-­encompassing, for all its qualities
Are present of themselves therein,
Transcending causes and effects.
And it is mind—­awareness self-­cognizing,
The essence of pure luminosity.
In this mind that's pure and all-­encompassing,
All things are gathered, all completely pure.

13f. When you realize the nature of phenomena
That arise as the display of the creative power,
There comes a sudden "re-­enlightenment."
When there is no such realization, there is ignorance
And the arising of deluded consciousness.
From the universal ground unfold
Eight consciousnesses with their objects.
But no matter what display may manifest,
Of worlds and their inhabitants,
It does not stray beyond
The vast expanse of the enlightened mind.
Not stirring from this mind's expanse,
Samsara and nirvana are encompassed by equality.
They are free and open in the vast space of awareness.

14a. In the fundamental state,
Samsara and nirvana are impossible
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.
Good and bad, adoption and rejection are impossible therein
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.
Gain, rejection, apprehender, apprehended are impossible therein
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.
Defilements of five poisons are impossible therein
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.
Limits and extreme positions are impossible therein
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.
Creative power and its display are impossible therein
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.
But there is no negation of their simple labels,
Because this state is natural, free of fabrication.

14b. Self-­arisen primordial wisdom
Is the exhaustion of phenomena,
Where even names do not exist.
Its creative power and all that is displayed
Are but a state of groundlessness.
No bondage is there and no freedom—
The fundamental nature of them both
Is but the natural state devoid of fabrication.
"Freedom" is no more than labeling
That simply fades away and leaves no trace.
"All are" and "all are not," as labels, are not contradictions,
For all is free and open from the very first.
And this is all that one can say.

15a. There is no differentiation—­all is free and open
In the expanse of spontaneous presence.
There is no separation—­all is free and open
In the expanse of the one sole sphere.
Anything may manifest—­free and open
In the expanse free of all determination.

15b. All appearances perceived as forms
Are free and open in themselves.
All that resonates as sound
Is free and open in itself.
All that is perceived as smell
Is free and open in the ultimate expanse.
Experiences of taste and touch
Are free and open in themselves.
Thoughts and recollections, all perceptions
Are all free and open—­groundless, rootless, and without support.

15c. All is free and open in the one sole sphere,
Free and open in the space of dharmatā.
Minds and objects are not two,
Free and open in equality.
Free and open is the self-­arisen,
Free and open in the space of primal wisdom.
Free and open is spontaneous presence,
Free and open in the ground's immaculate expanse.

15d. Phenomena in their variety are free and open,
Free and open in the single sole expanse.
Without orientation, they are free and open,
Free and open in the vast space of spontaneous presence.
Everything is free and open,
Free and open in the vast expanse of the quintessence.

15e. Luminosity is free and open,
Free and open in the vast expanse of sun and moon.
Dharmatā is free and open,
Free and open in the vast expanse of space.
Phenomena are free and open,
Free and open in the ocean's vast expanse.
The immutable is free and open,
Free and open in Mount Meru's vast expanse.

15f. All is free and open from the very first,
Free and open in the unborn vast expanse.
All is free and open, all at once,
Free and open in the vast expanse primordially pure.
All is free and open in an utter openness and freedom,
Free and open in the vast expanse primordially in flower.

Phenomena Are Primordially Open and Free within the Enlightened Mind

Chapter 13

The Regaining of Buddhahood without Effortful Practice

1. If, with the crucial point of freedom from exertion,
You train in the spontaneous and enlightened essence of phenomena,
Already buddha from the first, you will be buddha once again.
This is the summit of the vajra essence unsurpassed,
The heart of the nine gradual vehicles,
The vast expanse of the enlightened state.

2a1. Like mandalas of sun and moon
That clearly shine within the vault of heaven,
Enlightenment resides within, though it does not appear.
This quintessence is completely hidden
By great clouds: the lack of realization.

2a2. The great clouds that have gathered in the sky
Vanish into space all by themselves.
So too, when without effort
Clouds of causes and effects disperse,
There naturally appears, within the vault of heaven,
[The sun,] the essence of enlightenment.
To this end, different vehicles exist
According to the level of capacity.

2a3. Like the sun, awareness brightly shines
In the expanse of dharmadhātu.
And like the sun's rays, its creative power
Gives rise to everything without distinction.
As these rays fill with warmth the earth, the sea, and rivers,
The rising vapor forms the clouds' display
That veils the sun and its creative power.
Likewise the face of the quintessence
Is obscured by an impure display
Deriving from its own creative power:
An inconceivable hallucinatory array—
Appearances of phenomenal existence,
The world and its inhabitants.

2a4. Through the power of the sun's rays,
Winds are stirred that drive the clouds away.
So too when the nature of awareness has been realized,
Its display arises as its ornament.
Delusion, which is free and open from the first,
Then and there subsides.
Hallucinatory perceptions and appearances
Are not spurned but purified within the ultimate expanse,
And there's no knowing where they went.
The sun (the kāyas and the wisdoms
Present of themselves)
Shines in the unencumbered sky.
The kāyas and wisdoms
Are but the stainless self-­experience of awareness.
They do not come from somewhere else.

2b. Within the egg, the twice-­born's full-­fledged wings
Cannot be seen, enveloped by the shell.
But when the shell is broken, the garuda soars
At once into the heart of space.
Likewise, if defilements and the false cognitions
Of an apprehending subject and an apprehended object
Have been previously exhausted,
When finally the shell of the residual form,
The product of defilement, breaks,
Awareness luminous by nature
Immediately arises present of itself.
The kāyas and the wisdoms fill the vast expanse of space.
When they recognize their nature,
Yogis come to freedom
In Samantabhadra's vast expanse.

2c1. The display of their cognizant power
Knows no bounds throughout the ten directions.
They send forth emanations that bring benefit to beings.
And till the emptying of samsara,
They perform enlightened deeds.
Within the natural fundamental state, all this is a display
Arising from cognizant potency's creative power,
Which manifests on every side
And brings abundant benefit to beings.

2c2. Even though the impure display
In all its aspects is completely quelled,
Emanations manifest for impure beings.
They manifest—­as in the case of our own Teacher—
Through natural cognizant potency
And through the stainless acts and aspirations
Of wandering beings of pure, unsullied mind.

2c3. At that time, in all the buddha fields,
Unnumbered emanations
Lead beings without limit to enlightenment,
While never stirring from the ultimate expanse,
The Teacher's dharmakāya.
In the vast expanse of primal wisdom,
Not permanent or discontinuous, not falling to extremes,
The field of Dense Array arises by itself.
And here the inconceivable display of the sambhogakāya
Appears for the vidyādharas and ḍākinīs,
As also for the bodhisattvas who reside on the ten grounds.
It appears within the ultimate expanse
Through the cognizant power of the Teacher
Together with the virtue and the aspirations
Of beings to be guided.
It is the very face of the spontaneous presence.

3a. The dharmakāya
Is primordial wisdom self-­arisen.
Primordial wisdom's oceanlike omniscience is its display,
Present as the one sole sphere
Within the ultimate original expanse.

3b. The sambhogakāya is the luminous character,
Spontaneously present.
Its display is the five families
Together with the five primordial wisdoms,
Which manifest and fill
The vast expanse of space.

3c. The nirmāṇakāya is cognizant potency,
The ground and basis for arising.
Its displays occur according to the needs
Of beings to be guided.
It has mastery of great enlightened action.

3d. These three kāyas are not gained
Through striving and in causal sequence.
They are present of themselves primordially
And manifest when all is left just as it is.
To those most adept in the supreme secret,
They manifest within this very life,
And also they appear to those
Who in the bardo state are not misled.
The vajra essence, summit of all vehicles,
Is thus exalted over all the causal and resultant vehicles.

The Regaining of Buddhahood without Effortful Practice

Conclusion

1. This song of ultimate reality, the vajra essence,
Spacelike nature pure from the beginning,
Arose all by itself within the groundless,
Rootless, and unchanging place.
It is the play of what is free of movement and of change.

2. Its meaning is the vast state, all-­pervasive,
Of primordial equality.
Without arriving anywhere,
I stay in my primordial nature—
The unmoving dharmatā, spontaneously present,
Limitless, not falling to extremes.

3. In themselves, these teachings
Are a vast immensity that equals space itself.
Here, unmoving is the sovereign
Of the self-­arisen vast expanse.
Here, all manifold appearances subside just where they stand.
I have gone into the vast womb of the ultimate expanse,
Which is not to be pointed out by saying "this."

4. In the certainty of realization,
I, a yogi similar to space itself,
Set forth, in sum, my own experience
In concord with the scriptural tradition:
The twenty-­one root scriptures of the mind class,
The three series of the space class,
And the four sections of the pith instruction class.

5. Through this virtue,
May all beings, leaving none aside,
Attain without exertion the primordial ground.
May they, upon Samantabhadra's level,
Free of movement and of change,
Be sovereigns of the Dharma,
Spontaneously accomplishing
The twofold goal.

6. In all directions may there be
Glory, wealth, and happiness,
And may all wishes, just as in a buddha field,
Be spontaneously fulfilled.
Through the sounding of the Dharma drum
May liberation's flag of victory be raised.
And, never waning, may the sacred teaching spread and flourish.

This completes The Precious Treasury of the Dharmadhātu,
well composed upon the slopes of Kangri Thökar by Longchen Rabjam,
a yogi of the supreme vehicle.