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Pith Instructions on Mahamudra (translated by Karl Brunnholzl)

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I prostrate to glorious Vajradakini.

Tilopa 1.jpg

You work with hardships, are dedicated to the guru,
Can endure suffering, and are full of insight, Naropa.
You fortunate one, deal like this with your mind!

Though Mahamudra cannot be taught,
Just as in the example of which [part of] space is supporting which,
Your own mind, Mahamudras any supporting ground.
Let go and rest in the uncontrived, fundamental state.
if you loosen up your tightness, there is no doubt that you are liberated.

For example, when you look at the center of the sky, seeing will cease.
Likewise, when mind looks at mind,
The swarms of thoughts cease and unsurpassable enlightenment is attained.

For example, clouds [formed by] vapor on earth vanish in the sky’s expanse.
They neither go anywhere, nor do they dwell any place.
The same is true for the swarms of thoughts sprung from the mind:
Through seeing your own mind, the waves of thoughts clear up.

For example, the nature of space is beyond color and shape,
Untainted and unchanged by black or white.
Likewise, the essence of your own mind transcends color and shape,
Not tainted by the black and white phenomena of good and evil.

Just as the bright and clear heart of the sun
Cannot [even] be obscured by the darkness of a thousand eons,
The luminous heart of your own mind
Cannot be obscured by this cyclic existence of infinite eons.

For example, though space is conventionally labeled as empty,
Space cannot be described as being like this.
Likewise, though your own mind may be called luminosity,
Through this expression, it is not established in this way nor is there a basis for conventional labeling.
Thus, the nature of the mind is primordially like space.
There is not a single phenomena that is not included within it.

Tilopa21.jpg

Cast away all bodily activities, rest at ease in naturalness.
Let your speech be without utterance, resounding yet empty, like an echo.
Don’t think of anything in your mind, behold the dharma of the final leap.
The body is without pith, just like a bamboo cane.
Mind is like the center of space, beyond being an object of thinking.
Without discarding or placing, relax and leave it in its own state.
If mind lacks any point of reference, this is Mahamudra.
If you become familiar and acquainted with this, you attain unsurpassable enlightenment.

Whether it be what the mantrayana or the paramita yana say,
The collections of the vinaya, the sutras, and so on,
Or your own individual scriptures and philosophical systems,
Through none of these will you see luminous Mahamudra.
Through what springs from wanting, you do not see luminosity, but it obscures.
Through conceptions, precepts and samayas fall away from the actual.

Not engaging mentally, free from all wanting,
Self-arisen and self-settling, just like patterns on water--
If you do not go beyond the actuality of nondwelling and being nonreferential,
You do not go beyond samaya, which is the lamp in the darkness.

Tilopa 444.jpg

If you are free from all wanting and do not dwell in extremes,
You will see all dharmas of the scriptural collections without exception.
If you merge into this actuality, you are released from the dungeon of cyclic existence.
Resting in equipoise in this actuality, all wrongdoing and obscurations are consumed.
This is explained as "the lamp of the teachings."

Foolish beings who are not interested in this actuality
Are always just carried off by the stream of cyclic existence.
How pitiful are these fools who undergo unbearable sufferings in the lower realms!
If you wish to be liberated from such unbearable sufferings, rely on skillful gurus.
Once their blessings enter your heart, your own mind will be released.

Oh! The phenomena of cyclic existence are meaningless and the causes of suffering.
Since produced phenomena lack any essence, behold the essence that is meaningful.
Being beyond all that apprehends and is apprehended is the king of views.
If there is no distraction, this is the king of meditations.
If there is no activity with effort, this is the king of conduct.
If there is no hope and fear, the fruition is revealed.
Beyond an object of focus, the nature of the mind is luminous.
Without a path on which to travel, the beginning of the path of the Buddha is seized.
If you become familiar with there being no object with which to become familiar, unsurpassable enlightenment is attained.

Tilopa01.jpg

Oh! Worldly phenomena, well seen through,
Are unable to persist, just like dreams and illusions.
Dreams and illusions do not exist in actuality.
Therefore, give rise to weariness and cast away worldly activities.
Cut through all bonds of attachment and aversion toward your retinue and country
And meditate alone in forests and mountain retreats.
Dwell in the sphere of there being nothing on which to meditate.

If you attain the unattainable, you have attained Mahamudra.
For example, on a tree with a trunk, branches, and foliage so vast,
Once its single root is cut, its millions of branches will whither.
Likewise, if mind’s root is severed, the foliage of cyclic existence will wither.

Take, for example, the darkness that has accumulated over thousands of eons:
A single lamp dispels the immensity of this blackness.
Likewise, a single moment of mind’s luminosity
Eliminates the ignorance, wrongdoing, and obscurations that have amassed for eons.

Oh! Through the phenomena of the mind, the actuality beyond mind is not seen.
Through the phenomena of doing, the actuality of nothing to be done is not realized.
If you wish to attain the actuality beyond mind in which nothing is to be done,
Resolve mind to its depths and leave awareness nakedly.
Allow the polluted waters of thoughts to become clear.
Do not stop or make up appearances, leave them in their own place.

If there is no rejecting and adopting, whatever can appear is liberated as Mahamudra.
Since the all-ground is unborn, its being covered by the obscurations of latent tendencies is cleared away.
Do not be self-inflated or evaluate, rest within the unborn essence.
Appearances are self-appearances, so let mental phenomena exhaust themselves.

Tilopa-22.jpg

Complete release from extremes is the supreme king of views.
Boundless spacious depth is the supreme king of meditation.
Freedom from the bias of decision making is the supreme king of conduct.
Self-abiding with no hopes is the supreme fruition.

In beginners, this is similar to water [gushing down] a gorge.
In between, it is the gentle flow to the river Ganga.
Finally, all waters meet like a mother and her child.

If persons with inferior minds cannot dwell in the natural state,
They should seize the essential points of prajna and strip awareness bare.
Through many branches of gazing techniques and holding the mind,
They should be disciplined until awareness dwells in its natural state.

If you rely on a karmamudra, blissful-empty wisdom dawns.
By blessing means and prajna, enter into union.
Let it descend slowly, retain it, pull it back up,
Guide it to its place, and let it pervade the body.

If there is no attachment, blissful-empty wisdom dawns.
You will be of long life, without white hairs, and flourish like the moon.

Your complexion will be radiant and you will be powerful like a lion.
You will swiftly attain the common siddhis and blend with the most supreme.

May this pith instruction on the essential points of Mahamudra
Dwell in the hearts of fortunate beings!

Colophon: This completes the twenty vajra-verses on Mahamudra that glorious Tilopa, who was accomplished in Mahamudrae to the Kashmiri pandita Naropa on the banks of the Gangea after having put him trhough the twelve kinds of hardship.It was translated and finally edited in this form by this pandita himself and the great Tibetan translator Marpa Chokyi at Pushpahari in the north [of India.

English translation by Karl Brunnholzl, along with a commentary by the Fifth Shamarpa Goncho Yenla (1525-1583), both published in: The Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions (Snow Lion Publications, 2007).

Source

naturalawareness.net