Aryadeva's Grand Poem

Esoteric Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom
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Introduction

Introduction to Āryadeva’s Grand Poem and its commentary Pure Honey

This text attributed to the Brahmin Āryadeva (Person:Bram ze Ar+ya de ba) is the single Indian source text for the sūtra tradition of Severance, which is based entirely on the Perfection of Wisdom. The text appears in several editions of the Tengyur, as well as in collections on Severance. It was known as the Fifty-Verse Poem (Tshigs su bcad pa lnga bcu pa), or the Grand Poem (Tshigs bcad chen mo). Apparently the name that we find here, Esoteric Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom, was attached by a later editor. There is very little information on the Brahmin Āryadeva, though it is clear that this is not the same person as Ācārya Āryadeva, the famous disciple of Nāgārjuna, since both Āryadevas often appear in the same lineage of Severance. In the various complex lines of transmission, Brahmin Āryadeva is placed variously after Nāgārjuna and Ācārya Āryadeva, after Tārā and Sukhasiddhī, and after Mañjuśrī, all indicating his importance as an ancient source. In all cases, however, the direct recipient of his lineage is Dampa Sangye, said to be his nephew. It is Dampa Sangye (also called Pa Dampa, or “father” Dampa) who apparently brought the text from India to Tibet, having himself translated it, and gave it to the translator Zhama to edit, as stated in the colophon. Dampa Sangye is often identified as the great Indian scholar Kāmālaśīla, and even with the Ch’an patriarch Bodhidharma. In any case, it is Dampa Sangye who is considered the forefather of the system of Pacification (zhi byed) and its subsidiary Severance (gcod). The actual lineage of Āryadeva’s teaching, known as the “male Severance” (pho gcod), is presented in Jamgön Kongtrul’s catalogue, Ocean of Auspicious Renown, as follows: “Pa Dampa Sangye gave Kyotön Shakya Yeshe and Yarlung Mara Serpo the autonomous severance of the sūtra tradition, the meaning of Āryadeva’s small Fifty Verse source text, as instructions in six portions (gdams ngag brus tsho drug). Kyö gave them to his own nephew, Sönam Lama. He, then, is known to have bestowed four portions to [his disciple], Machik Lapdrön” (f. 19a). Many of Machik’s own compositions show the influence of this source text, which had joined with her own realizations derived from her readings of the perfection of wisdom sūtras.

The author of Pure Honey, the commentary to Āryadeva’s Grand Poem, is given in the colophon as Kunga Paljor. In the Record of Teachings Received, Kongtrul gives his full name as Drung Sarupa Kunga Namgyal (Drung sa ru pa Kun dga’ rnam rgyal). It is stated there that he received the cycle of empowerments and transmissions of all the source scriptures directly from Machik Lapdrön in a visionary experience (p. 778). “Drung” may indicate the Trungpa lineage, and “Saru” appears to be a place name, since his immediate predecessor given in the lineage of transmission of Āryadeva’s text in Kongtrul’s catalogue is called the Great Adept of Saru, Sönam Paljor (f. 71b). The latter was active in the 15th century (TBRC), which gives us an approximate date for Kunga Paljor. Other than this, and that according to Kongtrul he also authored the commentary to an important text attributed to Machik called Hair Tip of Wisdom, not much information is available. Yet these two commentaries together provide important supplemental material to the source texts of Severance collected in the Treasury of Precious Instructions.

Translation

Esoteric Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom
by Person:Bram ze Ar+ya de ba
(draft translation by Person:Harding, S. ©2011)

The Sanskrit title is Āryaprajñāpāramitā Upadeśa.
The Tibetan is 'Phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag

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.

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.

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 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 take advantage of 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 the 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
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.

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.

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. Zhama Lotsā received it and edited it.