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Esoteric Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom
by Āryadeva the Brahmin
(draft translation by Sarah Harding ©2011)
The Sanskrit title is Āryaprajñāpāramitā Upadeśa.
The Tibetan is 'Phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag[1]
Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
The sun and moon of your realization conquers ignorance and misconceptions
and the moisture of your compassion matures living beings.
Lion of Speech who perfectly completes the two purposes,
I bow to you in sincere devotion with body, speech, and mind.
The essence of the subject matter is the meaning of
nondual perfection of wisdom without root,
freed from referential extremes of nihilism and eternalism.
I will explain as best I can in order to benefit beings.
Rest the three bases to be prepared directly on the word.
Recognize uncontrived, unspoiled awareness:
mind that is the root of both samsara and nirvana,
yet is not established by any causes or conditions;
unborn single cut, intrinsic emptiness.
Such realization is like cutting the root of the tree trunk;
the branches of discursive thoughts will never grow again.
Give as vast offerings to the guru and Jewels
actual and emanated appearances in your mind.
After doing prostrations and offerings,
take refuge and arouse the mind with devotion.
Guard the precepts you have taken like your eyes. {3}
Do not abandon the bodhisattva precepts
even at the cost of your life.
Strive to uphold the training.[2]
Abandon the ten nonvirtues, such as killing,
and encourage others to so as well.
Express approval of what is consistent
with abandoning killing and those others.
Merely abandoning the ten nonvirtues,
the supreme path will not be discovered.
Practice the six perfections oneself
and encourage others to do so as well.
Express approval of what is
consistent with all six perfections.
Turn away from the arising of arrogance
resulting from the conduct of virtuous action
such as the six perfections.
If you do not realize that ultimate
nondual perfection is free of extremes
such as virtue-sin, accept-reject and hope-fear,
even if you practice conditioned virtue,
you will not become liberated in this very life.
Therefore do not reference even an atom
in all phenomena, positive or negative,
conditioned or unconditioned.
Nonetheless, wisdom that is not founded
on method will not become manifest.{4}
It is similar to the harvest of crops
that will not grow without cultivation.
If you do not resolutely engage
in the meaning of the perfection of wisdom,
even if you engage in generosity, ethical discipline, patience,
diligence, and meditative stability
it is like a blind person without a cane.
How could you possibly find your way?
The meaning of the perfection of wisdom—
do not seek elsewhere; you have it yourself.
That is the meaning of inherent great lucid clarity,
not established as an entity or with characteristics.
Meditate on recollecting the Buddha,
naturally clear of thoughts and memories,
free of all mental engagement.[3]
Outer-inner, gods-demons, samsara-nirvana,
appearance-emptiness, and so forth;
free of dualistic appearances,
Buddha's intent is unmistaken and uncontrived,
similar, for example, to the expanse of space.
The most sublime method
is to blend space and awareness.
At the times of mixing space and awareness,
things and characteristics, rejecting and accepting--
fixation on referents--are naturally cleared up.
Abide in the ultimate nature of phenomena
without subject-object dualistic fixation.
With body and mind thus uncontrived,
wherever empty sky pervades
empty direct awareness also pervades.
Rest in the extent of the great pervasive expanse.
At that time there is an experience
of awareness free of basis or root.
Awareness does not dwell anywhere
in the five senses and their objects.
Meditate without dualism in places
of rock houses, cemeteries,
haunted places, towns and big cities,
caves, and secluded caverns.
The meaning of the unborn taught by the guru;
practice it during the four daily activities.
Putting it into practice this way,
the blessings of the perfection of wisdom
and the realization that all phenomena are empty
will prevent obstacles from arising.
How would it be possible for emptiness
to be a threat to emptiness?
When the empty nature of phenomena is realized, {5}
the sign or characteristic is that externally
all objects of the five sense gates—
form, sound, smell, taste and touch—
are fully illuminated as emptiness.
Inwardly, the coarse afflictive emotions
and subtle dualistic fixation, although they arise,
are self-liberated in nonduality, beyond concern.
With that realization, abiding and arising are liberated
in the nature of phenomena,
like reaching the island of gold.
When a person's root life force is severed,
there is no need to purposefully sever
the eyes and other five sense gates.
Similarly, when the mind itself is severed at the root,
all phenomena are realized to be empty.
Since it severs the root of mind itself,
and severs the five toxic emotions,
extremes of view, meditational formations,
conduct anxiety, and hopes and fears;
since it severs all inflation,
it is called "severance" by semantic explanation.
Attachment to real [things] with passion and aggression
is the tangible devil, so how should one sever that?
Superior, average, or inferior experiencers[4]
rest in the state of no-thought,
meditate with attention on that,
or ascertain it through examination and analysis.
For instance like a thick forest,
a strong person,
and a sharp axe.
The apparitions of gods and demons that cause inflation
are called the intangible devil.
Set pestilence upon pestilence, directly in the flesh.
Stick the hot needle precisely there.
Go for refuge in the Three Jewels.
Put the constellations under thumb.
Reject closeness and distance towards gods and demons.
Focus on the extreme great pestilence.
In Severance, the evidence of having severed is freedom from fear.
Evidence of termination is that apparitions subside by themselves.
Evidence of turning away is fleeing in fear and terror.
Don't turn away; be like a doorframe.
Don't flee, even in fear and terror.
Suppress [them] like a spike,
Bend them down, and apply effort.
That is the supreme esoteric instruction.
Worldly gods and demons cannot bear
one's meditation on nondual perfections {6}
and cause various kinds of apparitions:
manifesting, overwhelming, dreamt, and so on.
Those with superior meditative experience
rest in the nondual meaning of it all.
The average practitioners focus on that and meditate.
The inferior offer their body aggregate as food.
Afterwards, an experience of direct awareness
free of any mental support will arise.
Having gone to a haunted place, if gods and demons
manifest overwhelming presence, separate awareness from matter.
This body is matter, like stone;
no harm can come to it.
Mind is not an actual thing, it is like the sky.
Who harms it and who is harmed?
Thinking that, rest without despair or worry
in the nature of phenomena.
Even if you think that the gods and demons
have snatched your material body and left,
without moving from your previous place,
do not despair over anything at all.
Whatever discursive thoughts arise are devils.
They come from one's own mind.
In mind, not even an atom is established
of a place from which to arise, to abide, or to go.
Buddhahood does not come after being liberated.
It is impossible to wander in samsara due to delusion.
Virtue, sin, and all karmic action are totally pure,
pure since forever, liberated since forever, awakened since forever.
One deviates by not avoiding sin.
Attachment to tenets is an obscuration.
Nondual self-liberation is the abiding nature.
Take refuge from within the nature of phenomena.
Arouse the aspiration and supplicate.
If obstacles arise for you,
go to a haunted place and meditate on the nondual.
In order to help other sentient beings,
with compassion as your preliminary,
know the emptiness of everything:
oneself, the patient, the evil spirit, and the disease.
Pat [the diseased area] and meditate in emptiness.
Face the prone [patient] toward you.[5]
If thereby [the disease] is not yet pacified,
go for refuge and arouse the mind in a haunted place.
Pass over [the patient] three times and meditate beyond extremes.
With a mandala, bless the sticks and stones
and confer them.
Hold the gods above to their oaths, {7}
subdue with splendor the nāgas below.
Tasks assigned to nāgas will all be accomplished.
Gods, from their abodes, will be your allies.
Nāgas without exception are bound into service.
Gurus, yidams, ḍākinīs, and dharma protectors
will watch over you as their child.
Having severed the tangible devils,
appearance will not rise up as your enemy.
Having severed the intangible devils,
male and female yakṣas will be held under oath.[6]
That and other such benefits
that are immeasurable will occur.
The source text Esoteric Instructions on Profound Perfection of Wisdom called The Grand Poem by Āryadeva the Brahmin is finished.
The Indian Paṇḍita Dampa Rinpoche translated this himself.[7] Zhama Lotsā received it and edited it.
Footnotes
- ↑ 1 Also called Grand Poem (Tshigs bcad chen mo) and Fifty Verse Poem (Tshigs su bcad pa lnga bcu pa), DNZ, Shechen Printing, vol. 14, ff. 1b1-4a3 (pp. 1-7). Other sources are in the Narthang Tengyur, mdo, nyo, ff. 396b-399a; Golden Tengyur, nyo, ff. 517a-520a, and Kamnyön, History of Pacification and Severance, ff. 1-5.
- ↑ 2. This entire verse is not found in the Narthang or Golden Tengyur editions.
- ↑ 3. An interlinear note here says "this is not in order." See the commentary for more on this.
- ↑ 4. nyams can, but in all other editions it is nyams tshad (degree of experience)
- ↑ 5. This line is absent from the tengyur editions.
- ↑ 6. The tengyur editions have an additional line after this one: nyon mongs dgra las rgyal bar 'byur (One will be victorious over the enemy afflictive emotions).
- ↑ 7. In the tengyurs the colophon reads: paṇḍita chen po mi pham mgon pos sgra rang 'byur du mdzad pa'o ("The great paṇḍita Mipam Gönpo translated this himself"). Mipam Gönpo is a name for Pa Dampa Sangye.