Clarity Equal to the Limit Chapter 13: Burning Wisdom
Then Vital Essence of All Delight said:
Burning Wisdom[257] is the space of practice!
May the Lord of Secrets,
You who come from the twist of hair at the Teacher's heart,
Please explain!
The Blessed One gave instruction:
Listen, High Mind, you child of a deity!
Secret Wisdom is the treasury of the mind!
The key which discriminates it
Is the practice of Burning Wisdom.
The true wisdom of the mind itself
Has no place for a need to practice.
It is total playfulness,
While its experience is without activity.
This is what is called:
"No search;
No practice."
The practices of the three:
Body,
And mind,
Do not look for a physical mudra.
The intrepid practice of the Great Ordinary:[258][259]
Things just as they are,
Is abundantly blissful.
That which is called: "practice"
Is not to give up on what this means,
Whether you practice
Going,
Walking,
Or sitting;
And to hold the bliss of the ultimate
By its root.
The vital essence of Speech[259][260]
Cannot be recited or spoken.
The practice of uncontrived Speech
Is to practice blissfully,
No matter what you do.
The empty noise of the unhindered
As is the language of Bingka,
For example.
This is a practice
That does not bind or liberate.
The mind
Does not enact the karma
Of growing or shrinking.
It has remained from before time
In the space of self-clarity,
Are its cause.
The unembellished is blissful like the sky.'
Self-clarity arises as great wisdom.
This is a practice which transcends
The intellect.
It is without an origin.
When the inspiration that transcends the intellect
Is turned inward,
There is the practice of the Sky Vajra.[260]
The outer and inner secrets are like this:
External thoughts are gathered to the interior.
Inner thoughts dissolve into secrecy.
Secret thoughts are liberated into thusness.
The path of liberation is also taught after liberation!
Direct awareness,
And backward practices
Do not continue to be conceptual bondages
When one is liberated
Into the space of vital essences.
Foxes and monkeys do not interrupt
The quarrels of lions and elephants.[261]
Experts at slander will continually present themselves.
This is the precise moment
For the two enclosures[262]
To be closed back into a unity.
Thus he spoke.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the thirteenth chapter, Burning Wisdom.
Chapter 14: The One Level of Wisdom
Then that child of a deity said these words to the Lord of Secrets:
Please explain the one level of wisdom,
That which goes to the destination
Of all the Buddhas!
The Blessed One gave instruction:
The true level,
Which is unborn from the primeval,
Transcends the objects
Of all attainment
And all accomplishment.
It is completely liberated
From the mind-sets of hope and fear.
There is nothing to traverse
In the object of understanding.
Uncontrived wisdom,
The level of the guru,
Is not purified,
But has been realized since before time.
The All Good,
Self-Arising in complete purity,
Is indivisibility embodied as magnificent bliss.
This Body,[263]
Is the highest level presented
In the Sutra Section:
The Auditors have
The level of Arhat.
The Self-Victorious
Have the level of Wish-Fulfilling Bliss.[264]
Total Light,
The Dense Array,
Lotus Endowed,
The Great Mass of Letter Wheels,
And the indivisibile status of the All Good:
All these levels may be enumerated in the mind,
But secret wisdom is said to be one thing.
Six excellent understandings
Occur to one who understands
The one level[265][266]of the Great Perfection.
Shines clear fortune
On the mandala of material things.
It is a wonder!
In the sound-mandala,
Has a clear light
Which is evoked without speech.
Is self-arising,
And is found in many natural smells.
It is like a drop of ambrosia
Falling on one’s tongue
While in the mandala of Mukharo.
Found in the pure things one can touch
Must be heaved from the peaks
Of snow mountains!
In the all-containing Dharma Mandala
The king must be held in prison!
The nail-heads of the chariot
Must be cut off,[266]
According to these instructions,
By liberating yourself
From the six collections [of the senses].[267]
Thus gave he instruction.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the fourteenth chapter, The One Level of Wisdom.
Chapter 15: Teachings on the Three Bodies
Then that child of a deity made himself manifest, and said this to the Lord of Secrets, Vajradhara:
Please explain these Three Bodies
That go all the way to the end!
He said this, and the Lord of Secrets gave instruction:
The Dharmakaya is uncontrived appearance.
Perfect Enjoyment is unpurified awareness.
It arises as the compassionate Manifest Body.
The Dharmakaya encompasses
All the realms of the sky,
All the Buddha-fields of the apparent world,
And all the Buddhas of the three times.
Each and every one of the sentient beings
Of the three realms
Are gathered in the audience of
The uncontrived Dharmakaya.
The Dharmakaya is insubstantial wisdom itself.
It is liberated from the intellect.
It is not in the thoughts.
It is free from vocal conventionalities
Of all sorts.
The unchanging vajra is like the sky!
Enjoyment is self-aware wisdom.
It takes a body
Whose appearance has no true nature
And which is ornamented with Signs[268]
And exemplary markings.[269]
As with an image in a mirror,
Wisdom appears to be an illusion.
The Buddha-field of Perfect Enjoyment
Is where you can practice all the enjoyments of desire,
But enjoy them without attachment.
It is therefore ornamented with flowers.
The audience there is the audience of
They do not use words and letters.
They teach the Dharma properly,
Using symbols,
Founded on confidence
The Manifest Body of compassionate wisdom
Is the physical manifestation
Of all of the disciples
There to be disciplined.
The Úâkya Sage
Is the essence of the Six Sages.[270]
Among the six [classes of] living beings
Throughout the universe
Of three thousand Buddha-fields.
His audience
Is the four kinds of self-appearance.
His teaching
Is the explanation of the Three Baskets.
Thus he spoke.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the fifteenth chapter, Teachings on the Three Bodies.
Then High Mind, that child of a deity, said these words to the great Lord of Secrets:
Please explain the playfulness of wisdom
From the mandala of your Mind!
The Lord of Secrets gave instruction:
The meaning of the vital essence of secret wisdom
Is the pure light of wisdom.
It transcends all things.
Emerges in no [particular] direction.
Images arise by themselves,
Without contrivance,
In the rust-free mirror of wisdom.
Pervades all things,
Regardless of their clarity or obscurity.
The apparent world is clearly the Bodhicitta.
It is equanimous in its own place,
And pervades the ten directions.
It does not go or come,
So it dissolves into the Dharmadhatu.
This is the wisdom of equanimity.[271]
Which is self-clear awareness,
Is the unadulterated,
Completely perfect,
All Good.
This is wisdom that does not,
In fact,
Conceptualize individual things.
This is the unadulterated clear wisdom![272]
Self-arising activities will emerge,
In the Untranscended Great Mudra,[273][274]
No matter what.
They bring to fulfillment
This, therefore, is the deed accomplishing wisdom.[274]
The reality of this uncontrived dimension
Is not something that awareness
That is based on grasping and conceptualizing
Can know.
The clear light of the mandala of the mind,
Therefore,
Is the wisdom of emptiness.[275]
The self-clarity of knowledge
Is not contrived.
To know what this means
Is wisdom.
Reality is the primordially pure
Clear light of the mind.
To understand what this means
Is wisdom.
Unhindered self-awareness is spontaneously realized.
A yogin who understands what this means
Frolics in the great space of wisdom.
The container of the Six Circles[276][277]
Is but one,
Yet it has possessed from before time
The Five Great Ones.[277]
To know what this means
Is wisdom.
The great sky of knowledge,
In its vast diffusion,
Frolics through the realms
Of the Nine Great Spaces.278
There is nothing that is not contained in this.
The All-Good Creator of All Things[279]
Explains secret wisdom
In a body of perseverance
To those without understanding,
Using the door of words,
And the ocean that transcends the Nine Spaces:
The space of composition
That uses letters,
And the space of the ocean
Of t
Chapter 15: Teachings on the Three Bodies
Then that child of a deity made himself manifest, and said this to the Lord of Secrets, Vajradhara:
Please explain these Three Bodies
That go all the way to the end!
He said this, and the Lord of Secrets gave instruction:
The Dharmakaya is uncontrived appearance.
Perfect Enjoyment is unpurified awareness.
It arises as the compassionate Manifest Body.
The Dharmakaya encompasses
All the realms of the sky,
All the Buddha-fields of the apparent world,
And all the Buddhas of the three times.
Each and every one of the sentient beings
Of the three realms
Are gathered in the audience of
The uncontrived Dharmakaya.
The Dharmakaya is insubstantial wisdom itself.
It is liberated from the intellect.
It is not in the thoughts.
It is free from vocal conventionalities
Of all sorts.
The unchanging vajra is like the sky!
Enjoyment is self-aware wisdom.
It takes a body
Whose appearance has no true nature
And which is ornamented with Signs[268]
And exemplary markings.[269]
As with an image in a mirror,
Wisdom appears to be an illusion.
The Buddha-field of Perfect Enjoyment
Is where you can practice all the enjoyments of desire,
But enjoy them without attachment.
It is therefore ornamented with flowers.
The audience there is the audience of
They do not use words and letters.
They teach the Dharma properly,
Using symbols,
Founded on confidence
The Manifest Body of compassionate wisdom
Is the physical manifestation
Of all of the disciples
There to be disciplined.
The Úâkya Sage
Is the essence of the Six Sages.[270]
Among the six [classes of] living beings
Throughout the universe
Of three thousand Buddha-fields.
His audience
Is the four kinds of self-appearance.
His teaching
Is the explanation of the Three Baskets.
Thus he spoke.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the fifteenth chapter, Teachings on the Three Bodies.
Then High Mind, that child of a deity, said these words to the great Lord of Secrets:
Please explain the playfulness of wisdom
From the mandala of your Mind!
The Lord of Secrets gave instruction:
The meaning of the vital essence of secret wisdom
Is the pure light of wisdom.
It transcends all things.
Emerges in no [particular] direction.
Images arise by themselves,
Without contrivance,
In the rust-free mirror of wisdom.
Pervades all things,
Regardless of their clarity or obscurity.
The apparent world is clearly the Bodhicitta.
It is equanimous in its own place,
And pervades the ten directions.
It does not go or come,
So it dissolves into the Dharmadhatu.
This is the wisdom of equanimity.[271]
Which is self-clear awareness,
Is the unadulterated,
Completely perfect,
All Good.
This is wisdom that does not,
In fact,
Conceptualize individual things.
This is the unadulterated clear wisdom![272]
Self-arising activities will emerge,
In the Untranscended Great Mudra,[273][274]
No matter what.
They bring to fulfillment
This, therefore, is the deed accomplishing wisdom.[274]
The reality of this uncontrived dimension
Is not something that awareness
That is based on grasping and conceptualizing
Can know.
The clear light of the mandala of the mind,
Therefore,
Is the wisdom of emptiness.[275]
The self-clarity of knowledge
Is not contrived.
To know what this means
Is wisdom.
Reality is the primordially pure
Clear light of the mind.
To understand what this means
Is wisdom.
Unhindered self-awareness is spontaneously realized.
A yogin who understands what this means
Frolics in the great space of wisdom.
The container of the Six Circles[276][277]
Is but one,
Yet it has possessed from before time
The Five Great Ones.[277]
To know what this means
Is wisdom.
The great sky of knowledge,
In its vast diffusion,
Frolics through the realms
Of the Nine Great Spaces.278
There is nothing that is not contained in this.
The All-Good Creator of All Things[279]
Explains secret wisdom
In a body of perseverance
To those without understanding,
Using the door of words,
And the ocean that transcends the Nine Spaces:
The space of composition
That uses letters,
And the space of the ocean
Of the mirror of clear light.
Thus gave he instruction.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the sixteenth chapter, Wisdom.
he mirror of clear light.
Thus gave he instruction.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the sixteenth chapter, Wisdom.
Chapter 17: Showing the Transmission of the Vajra
Then Pure Mind, that child of a deity, said this to the Lord of Secrets, the Blessed One:
Please speak on
The demonstration of the transmission
Of the Vajra!
The Lord of Secrets gave instruction:
Listen, Vital Essence of All Delight, You!
Listen well, and keep this in your mind!
The holiness of secret wisdom
Had already appeared in past times.
The Buddha King of True Perfection[280]
Gave it to seven heart princes.
They reached the destination of their awareness
And became established in the Dharma,
That which cannot be sought.
This Vajradhara had a captain
Who understood the vehicle
Of awareness as being the mind itself,
And became famous in three divine abodes.
You, O Prince, O Emanated Emanation![281]
Spread this in the center of the Land of Jambhu
To qualified recipients for secrets
Who exceed kings!
Teach the ear lineage of the Tantra of Secret Awareness[282]
In the way of making it manifest compassionately!
Secret-holders
Who are qualified recipients for awareness
Will attain the result of total liberation
When they know the meaning
Of this uncontrived secret.
Awareness arises
At the precise moment
One has equanimous stability
Through knowing the meaning of equanimity.
Suitable receptacles for secrets,
Such as Vidyadharas,
Will come forth in future times
And [use different] words.
They will seize the treasury
Of the vital sap of the teaching
And abide on the level of Vidyadharas.
Even if this teaching of the Great Perfection,
The Ati,
Should be suppressed
It will not fail!
This is because its meaning does not change.
Like the sky,
Reality is free from embellishment
Since before time.
It will not fail
For any reason whatever.
If you do not possess the magical words[283][284]
And you practice according to sounds
You will be deluded,
And your view and practice
Will have a distorted pride.
It is a darkened mind
That does not discriminate the difference
Between the playfulness
Of uncontrived self-appearance
And the designations
Of desirous conceptual constructions.
The rash are mixed up,
So they speak perversely,
Like boulders falling into the sea.
Harahan is on the vajra needle,
So put all this in order
With the three:
Hearing,
And meditating.
Take it to mind!
Thus gave he instruction.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the seventeenth chapter, Showing the Transmission of the Vajra.
Chapter 18: Teaching by Means of Symbols and Signs
Then that child of a deity, High Mind, asked the Blessed One to explain signs and symbols.
The Lord of Secrets explained them in total purity:
A is the unborn.
Ti is the sign of the unhindered.
Yoga is the juice of the Dharma,
The Great Perfection.
The Atiyoga is the god of the gods.[284]
You, child of a deity,
It is like this:
When you are adept
At being without friends or enemies
You will be liberated both here
And in the intermediate state.[285]
The path of liberation is also taught after liberation!
The house of Vajrasattva
Is taught with the instructions
On the Three Encounters.
Undefiled wisdom is blissfully taught
By the instructions on the circle's interior.
The jewel ocean of the sky
Is taught by the experience of encountering
The symbol of controlling cognition
Is taught by the concentration
Which alters the imagination.
The meditation on trackless feelings
Is taught by the reversed symbol[286]
Of having no position.
The awareness of the four kinds of time
Of knowledge which must be heard.
The instructions of great equanimity
Are taught by the sign of the Dakini Tantras.[287]
The instructions on the unquivering vessel water
Are taught by the hand-symbol
Of remaining in the center of the circle.
The instructions which cut off
Are taught using the instructions
For the binding of the nine.
The instructions for taking stupidity on the path
Of the mirror of recollection.
The liberation of the six [sensory] concatenations
To their own place
Is taught by a variety of appropriate symbols.
The liberation of the five poisons to their own place
Of the white-silver mirror.
The dependence of the higher upon doors
Is taught by the sign
The dependence of the lower upon doors
Is taught through Bolakakola.
The instructions on the six mandalas
Of the six domains.
The instructions on the unborn man
Of hoisting the mudra.
The instructions on unobstructed playfulness
Of the vajra throne.
The instructions on non-duality
Of the letter A.
Encountering signs throws out signs.
You must place yourself
Vital Essence of All Delight,
It is like this:
The names given to what symbols mean
Are held to be eight.
The uncontrived,
Which is spontaneously realized,
Is profound.
The uncontrived Tantra of Secret Wisdom[288]
Snips off the rope
Of longing for the emotional obstructions.
Therefore The Tantra of Perfect Wisdom[289]
Is the All Good One’s Mind of Awareness.
That which is called The Tantra of Wisdom Light[290]
Is the great equanimity which contains all things.
The Tantra of Ocean-like Untroubled Equanimity[291]
Is the wisdom lamp which clarifies all Dharmas.
The Tantra which is Filthless Like the Sun and Moon[292]
Has no center or extreme.
The Tantra which is Equal to the Limit of the Sky[293]
Makes the beautiful ornament of great bliss.
The Tantra which is like an Unborn Jewel[294]
Is a treasure of awareness that contains all secrets.
These clear Tantras
Are to be explained
Later on!
E Ma!
This secret wisdom is the highest peak
Of all the vehicles!
It is the innermost of all inspirations.
This is the certain meaning
Of all the Proclamations
Of the King of All Transmissions!
All Tantras, without exception,
Are related in meaning.
This is the vital essence of the teaching
In its totality.
It goes to the boundaries of all things.
Like pouring the milk of a lioness
Into the golden vessel
During the transmission of Gulang,[295]
This secret
Which contains the vital sap of the instructions
Is given to qualified recipients
Who are in a good way of being.
Let it come into your mind,
O child of a deity!
Light rays of compassion
Emanate in the ten directions!
This must be kept secret
From unqualified recipients who lack commitment,
Even if they surround you like shadows.
As if it were the neck of a crocodile,[296]
Secret wisdom must not be taught to them.
This Tantra of Profound Secret Wisdom[297]
Is secret,
And concerns the intention to be free.
It is assigned to the divine Son of Good Protection.
For its abode:
Put it in rocks and water.
Thus he spoke.
From Clarity Equal to the Limit this is the eighteenth chapter, Teaching by Means of Tokens and Symbols.
The Tantra of Secrecy and Clarity Equal to the Limit[298] spoken by the Blessed One, Vajrapani, is finished.