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The Quintessence of all Source Texts and Esoteric Instructions of Severance, the Perfection of Wisdom
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Introduction
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Translation
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Bibliography
Notes
Introduction
Jamgön Kongtrul gives the author of this particular text as Jamyang Gönpo (‘Jam dbyangs mgon po, b. 1208) in his catalogue of the Treasury of Precious Instructions called An Ocean of Auspicious Renown (f. 72a). Heart Essence of Profound Meaning, however, seems to be a general name referring to a whole system of teachings in the Severance tradition, and a note was added at the end of this text stating as much. Kongtrul also writes of the inception of Heart Essence written down by Samten Özer of Gyaltang after a visionary experience of Machik Lapdron, which later became known as the direct lineage of the Gyaltang system (TOK, vol. I, p. 545). A collection of texts transmitted by Samten Özer, however, is differently entitled Cycle of Profound Severance of Evil (bDud gcod zab mo’i skor), and this is not among them. According to Dan Martin (Tibskrit), a brief biography of Jamyang Gönpo is found in PPKT (pp. 137-138) with a list of 11 titles of his works, mainly on Severance. His childhood name was Bsod nams mgon po. From the age of six he studied with the master Urepa (Slob dpon Dbus ras pa) and Zhikpo Kunseng (Zhig po Kun seng). After his mother died when he was fourteen he entered the monastery at Serding (Gser sding) and was ordained under Lama Martön (Mar ston), receiving the name Sherap Jungne (Shes rab 'byung gnas). Jamyang Gönpo may be the author of this source text, but there are many other texts by various authors bearing the name Heart Essence of Profound Meaning. The commentary called The Big General Guide of Severance (gCod kyi spyi khrid chen mo), which is available in several collections, is in fact a commentary precisely on this short text, greatly elaborated and covering every conceivable subject. The translation has been done with reference to this commentary, as has the notes on alternative versions of the root text and the divisions into verse. The page numbers in the notes refer to the edition found in the Padma Lingpa collection.
Translation
The Quintessence of all Source Texts and Esoteric Instructions of Severance, the Perfection of Wisdom [1]
(draft translation by Sarah Harding ©2011)
{17.1} Homage to the Guru and Mother of the Buddhas
Dharmakāya free of elaboration, unspeakable, unthinkable, unimaginable realm of space,
Saṃbhogakāya fully possessing major and minor marks,
Emanating as anything to tame whomever for others' benefit:
I bow down to the consummation of emptiness, compassion, and aspiration.
Mahāyāna dharma outshining the four devils,
neither inhibiting nor indulging samsara and nirvana, the meaning of perfection,
making adverse conditions the path; the approach of the Lord Mother:[2]
I write of the severance instructions that befriend adversity.[3]
[The master should be][4] realized in the words' meanings, full of loving kindness, endowed with eight skills,[5]
finished with personal benefit, accomplished in emptiness and compassion, and skilled in clearing away faults.
[The disciple should] have faith, enthusiasm, devotion, armor, and fortitude,
desire protection from fear, higher status, the aspiration to excel, or to gain omniscience.
Receiving supreme empowerment, [the disciple] becomes a vessel for the profound teaching.[6]
The seeker of mind itself is introduced through the path of accumulation and purification.
Fortunate ones should adhere to this path of the victorious ones
in order to sever the lack of realization, perverse realization,[7] biased realization, and doubts.
The devils are the gods, afflictive emotions, aggregates, and the death devil.
The special four are tangible, intangible, exaltation, and inflation.
[Practice in] charnel grounds, desolate valleys, temples, isolated trees, deserted houses, and so forth.
Stay in places where your mind is anxious and afraid.
At night, the terrifying gods and demons gather and thoughts abound.
This is the time to sever doubts, clear away obstructers, and enhance realization.
Those who desire omniscience go for refuge and supplicate.
With the sublime thought of enlightenment aroused [it becomes] the path of emancipation for all beings. {18}
By entrusting the resident [practitioner] to the devil, host and guest mix as one.
Entrusting adversaries to be escorts, one is free in a secure stronghold.
Entrusting the patient to demons, thrive in wellbeing without disease.
Be free of negative adverse conditions by integrating conditions on the path.
Free the mind of self-fixation by relinquishing the body aggregate as food.
Scatter the self-fixating wise guy[8] by separating body and mind.
Free fear on its own ground by inspecting the fearful one.
Tossing away fixation on the body as self, obstacles will arise as glory.
Obstacles will subside in emptiness by pursuing conditions.
Grabbing hold of evil spirits will scatter the wise guy[9] of fearful objects.
Knowing that everything is mind will liberate on your own ground without fixation.
Letting go at will and sending off [means that] no one can carry you off.
Whenever someone rests evenly in the meaning of the nature of phenomena
devils and such can't bear it and display various apparitions at that time.
Outer, inner, and secret experiential appearances manifest,
various forms show up in dreams, and unpleasant sounds echo predictions.
When the mind becomes agitated, self-fixation emerges from objects.
Once the inner demons of one's mind are tamed the outer demons vanish in emptiness.
If hesitation and insecurity arise, directly suppress it simultaneously.
If you have fear and anxiety, focus intently on your thoughts.
Once apparitions increase, sever painlessly and cut off thoughts:
regret, doubts, wrong views, weariness with dharma,
disease, dukkha, drowsiness, and scattered practice—
as these resistant thoughts and obstacles occur, rely on effort for accomplishment.
Liberate hopes and fears on their own ground by focusing on the limits of major resistance.
Mahāyāna's overwhelming brilliance ascertains pleasure and pain.
Putting the constellations under thumb collapses the false cave of samsara and nirvana.[10]
Controlling pestilent [spirits] as servants in haunted places destroys the illusion of gods and demons.
Suppress[11] the big, fierce apparitions of gods and demons.
If they challenge you, then do crazy yogic discipline.
If apparitions still display, delight in illness and be happy to die.[12]
Hold them by the hook of a compassionate mind that benefits all. {19}
Know that the times and signs[13] of termination appear in actuality, visionary experience, and dreams,
arising to oneself outwardly, inwardly, and secretly.
If you rest in one-pointed meditative stability within emptiness,
no doubt the delusion of samsara and nirvana will be distinguished in unity.[14]
If there are no signs of uprising in the preliminaries, remove the anticipation of uprising.
If there are no signs of suppressing in the main practice, turn your back on anger and desire.
If there is no evidence of termination at the conclusion, remove the anticipation of evidence.
The hopes and fears of a desirous mind are devils, which the wise reject.
Helpers and harmers are subdued by gentle and fierce conduct.
Do aspirations to establish them in enlightenment through various means.
Desiring the attainment of omniscient Buddhahood for oneself and others,
fortunate ones rely on this path of emancipation.
This idea that it is hard to give up long familiarized habitual patterns
is the single cause that gives rise to the variety of dukkha[15] in existence.
Here in this charnel ground of collected aggregates and elements of the support and supported,
sever [mental] motion in this place of fluctuating thoughts and memories.
The yogin who has been truly[16] introduced to the meaning of empowerment
[should practice] severance as long as this devil of discursive thought is not cut off.
Phenomena’s nature primordially possesses incidental stains.
View, meditation, and conduct conquer them in analysis through ground, path and result.[17]
When phenomena’s nature is ascertained, harmful thoughts abound.
Thoughts about the various objective appearances of knowables come and go.
Without the courage of realization and the experiences of meditation,
one is blocked when engaging conditions without subjugating and equalizing.
Cut through the trunk of thought-provocation with the axe of view, meditation, and action,
and all the leaves of mental events and concepts will be systemically stopped.
As the warm rays of sunlight overcome all humidity and gloom,
the dawning of primordial awareness removes flaws and traverses the stages of grounds and paths.
The remedies of natural nonconceptuality and skillful transformation[18] can eliminate [problems],
and with the awakening mind of emptiness and compassion make offerings.[19]
Devils and spirits cannot lead you to the lower realms.
Since toxic emotions[20] give rise to existence’s sufferings, overcome them. {20}
The place is this haunted charnel ground of channels and elements collected in one’s own body,
where all afflictive emotion spirits abide as in a dwelling.
Light rays of luminous primordial awareness of realization expand.
Until they banish the darkness of ignorance, keep severing.
Whenever afflictive emotions arise, hold the remedy through view, meditation, and action,
and be totally victorious over devils at that time.
Just as the unpleasant taste of poison in food will rise up,
afflictions of anger and passion will rise up under the influence of practice.
Without attaining tolerance of dharma, the path evinces terrifying conditions.
Regret, wrong views, doubts, and annoyance with dharma will surface.
When afflictive emotions arise, oppose them with method and wisdom.
Realization of emptiness, transformation methods, and offerings are the supreme remedies.
The unbearable net of afflictive emotions in the ocean of existence
is best conquered by the equal taste of primordial awareness, the supreme measure.
Realizing the meaning of faith and compassion, possessing the vital points of instruction,
yogins practice severance for the purpose of attaining emancipation.
Intense sickness, dukkha, and toxicity are everyone’s devils.
They rob the life-force of attaining freedom if suchness is not realized.
The support that produces all happiness and sadness, faults and qualities, samsara and nirvana
is the abode of four elements, afflictions, winds, phlegm, bile, and aggregates.
When sickness and dukkha arise in body, speech, and mind
and you are tormented by painful discordant adverse conditions,
if you know that the support of sickness and dukkha and every fault and problem
is both body and mind, and if those two are separated, liberation is assured.[21]
Snakes cannot bear the threatening finger pointed at them.
Whoever meditates on the meaning of emptiness quells the sickness spirit and it flees.
Those times when you are afflicted by intense sickness and dukkha,
discouraged and lacking confidence, at that time you give up and become blocked.
Vigor increases with mental heroism, experience, and realization.
The arsenal of view and conduct of acute confidence conquers the devil’s hordes.
Sickness and dukkha subside by the profound integration of method and wisdom.
Free of faults, qualities increase like the waxing moon.
With the confidence of realization, the force of experience, much study, {21}
courage, magnanimity, determination, path,[22] vigor, and yogic conduct,
sever the devils of various worldly adversities such as
sickness, corpse spirit contamination, the eight concerns, attachment and aversion.
Sever the places that give rise to afflictive emotions such as
one’s own house, area, city, country, monastery, and so forth.
The duration is long or short, straightforward time, or until awakening;
for as long as happiness and sadness, obstacles and adversities arise.
Integrate sickness, spirits, violation contamination, the eight concerns, happiness and sadness and so forth
by meditating on their lack of intrinsic nature and knowing them as karma.
As sickness, dukkha, and so on become more blatant than before,
various discords occur such as outer and inner adverse conditions.
Doubting cause and effect, the instructions, and the spiritual friend,
fearing circumstances, the conditions of the path wear you down.
Since it is non-existent, how is this appearance of a bad spirit hurting me?
Vanquish this unreal delusion of an enemy with a mental antidote.
When this devil of attachment and aggression, the afflictions of existence, is finished off,
it opens the coffers of all qualities, the source of joy and well-being.
Recognize dreams through diligent accumulation and purification, and intentional conditioning.
When under control, refine, increase, and then meditate on lucid clarity.
Drawing up energy currents and consciousness is the path of transference.
The arising of lucid clarity from subtle and coarse melting sequences is the bardo [practice].
Physical diseases and various mental problems occur when gods and demons are agitated.
Meditate on emptiness and giving various gifts [of the body] with the courage of possessing the remedies.
Karmic causes and the conditions of afflictive emotion produce all sickness.
Expel them by channel and energy current methods and yogic exercise visualizations.
Depression, pervasive dukkha, and lethargy are mental problems. {21}
Meditate on methods and interdependence, do energy current and yogic exercise visualizations.
Boundless devotion, vast compassion, reversing, and taking on adverse conditions
become the enhancement of all qualities.
Whoever grasps this supreme Severance Object, the victors’ intent,
finds the treasure of the path to freedom and vast, immeasurable qualities.
Profound and vast, this precious holy teaching that benefits everyone
is especially elevated in its adherents, tenets, continuity, harmony, and renunciations.
Uphold this priceless precious teaching with devotion,
like someone who grasps the value when finding a real gem.
By arranging this Severance source text Heart Essence of Profound Meaning, distilled from the huge ocean of manifold and profound [teachings], may all migrators realize the meaning of severance in consummating Severance Object and attain the supreme mother perfection, the totally pure space of phenomena.
This completes the esoteric instruction pertaining to Severance of Evil Object, the intention of the perfection of wisdom, the personal advice of the gurus and adepts, the esoteric instructions pertaining to Severance of Evil Object called Heart Essence of Profound Meaning, a teaching difficult to find in the world.
Note: This is the root of most of the later instructions. There are many commentaries and guidebooks and such.
Footnotes
- ↑ Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa gcod kyi gzhung dang man ngag mtha' dag gi yang bcud zab don thugs kyi snying po, in Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i zab don bdud kyi god yul gyi gzhung, DNZ vol. 14, pp. 17-22. Also found in The Collected Works of Longchen Rabjam (Longchenpa), under the title Zab don gyi gzhung, vol. 26, pp. 124-130, with the colophon kun mkhyen dri med pas mdzad pa’i gcod yul rig ‘dzin Padma gling pa las thob pa’o. Also a prepublication edition of The Complete Writings of Padampa Sangye and Machik Labdron, Tsadra Publications, Delhi, India, 2013, pp. 115-120. An extensive commentary is The Great General Guide of Severance (gCod kyi spyi khrid chen mo) from Zab don thugs kyi snying po bdud kyi gcod yul gyi skor: A collection of Gcod texts reflecting the teachings of Padma-gliṅ-pa. Reproduced from a manuscript collection from Padma-bkod. New Delhi, 1981, pp. 47-339.
- ↑ A ma Jo mo: this refers to Machik Lapdrön (Ma gcig sLab sgron, 1055-1153), who was often called simply Jomo, an honorific title for women. Ama is "mother," usually shortened to ma.
- ↑ A slightly different version of this verse is found in Kongtrul's Treasury of Knowledge. See translation in Book Eight, Part Four: Esoteric Instructions, p. 277.
- ↑ This and other inserts are based Kongtrul's helpful dissection of this section in Treasury of Knowledge: Book Eight, Part Four: Esoteric Instructions, pp. 280-81.
- ↑ The Great General Guide of Severance, f. 7-7b (59-60), lists six skills, apparently counting realization and loving kindness as the other two. The six are: skill in casting out the body as food after definitely distinguishing samsara and nirvana through the view, skill in maintaining undistracted mindfulness after understanding mental non-action in meditation, skill in discerning the boundary of samsara and nirvana once the meaning of lack of validity of appearance and emptiness of tenants is actualized, skill in teaching the support of the word guides without acceptance and rejection, skill in teaching the esoteric instructions on “carrying flesh carrying blood” of the meaning guides, and skill in the enhancements of practice.
- ↑ See Kongtrul's description of the types of empowerment in Esoteric Instructions, p. 281.
- ↑ In most editions and instances of quoting this text or commenting on it, this is rendered as log rtogs (“perverse realization”), which I have followed here rather than DNZ log rtog (“perverse thoughts”). In The Big General Guide of Severance (f. 13b/72) these four flaws to be severed are explained by examples.
- ↑ mkhan po (khenpo), this functions as a personifier, though in other contexts it is an abbot or scholar or wise one.
- ↑ mkhan po, but dngos po (“things”) in The Big General Guide of Severance (f. 32b).
- ↑ DNZ: skar chen thibs 'og bcug pas 'khor 'das rdzun phug gtib. This idiom is also used in Āryadava’s Grand Poem. It is explained in The Big General Guide of Severance (f. 60a-b): “Having put [something] under thumb (thebs), it cannot rise up. For example, in the sky the light of the sun overwhelms the moon by its brilliance. When all the constellations are put under the thumb of the sun, they become incapacitated. Similarly, for the yogin who realizes the view, the external obstacles of devils and subtle or gross internal thoughts of attachment, aggression, eight concerns, and so forth are like the stars: however many arise, the view of mental nonengagement in the unminding mind is like the sun that overwhelms them with brilliance so that they cannot rise up.”
- ↑ sar la mnan. General Guide: ar la mnan. Tsadra edition: slar la mnan.
- ↑ da rung cho 'phrul ston na na dga' di skyid gyis should be shi skyid bya as in the General Guide.
- ↑ Here rdug and in Tsadra edition brdugs (“conquer”), but rtags (“signs”) in the General Guide makes more sense. It explains the three kinds of evidence of termination or success: in time or duration, through outer, inner and secret signs, and the consummate realization, which is the resting in emptiness.
- ↑ Zung 'jug 'khor 'das 'khrul shan chod par the tshom med. General Guide: Zung 'jug 'khor 'das kun gyis 'khrug shan 'byed par the tshom med.
- ↑ A Sanskrit and Pāli term equivalent in Tibetan to sdug bsngal, and usually translated (some say mistranslated) as “suffering” in English. Since the author leaves the Sanskrit, so did I.
- ↑ mngon du. General Guide (190): sngon du (“previously”). Also dbang dang ngo sprod (“empowerment and introduction”) with the comment that the yogin is ripened first (i.e. “previously”) by the empowerment and then given the introduction, which is specifically from Opening the Doors to the Sky, quoting Machik’s Yang tshom. This may be a preferable reading.
- ↑ The General Guide comments: “The thoughts are ascertained on the ground, path, and result; [what is] not realized, that stained aspect, is conquered by view, meditation, and conduct.”
- ↑ bsgyur mkhas (“skillful or wise [about] transformation”). The General Guide quotes this as sgyu mkhan (“the one who deceives”) but then glosses as nyon mongs pa ye shes su bsgyur nus (“able to transform afflictions into primordial awareness”).
- ↑ mchod par bzhes. General Guide: mchod par shes (“know offerings”) and glosses as tha mas bde bar gshegs pa la mchod par shes shing (“the lowest know to make offerings to the tathāgata”). This verse is analyzed according to three levels of applying remedy: the highest that needs no remedy because of natural nonconceptuality, the average remedy of transformation, and the least remedy of making offerings.
- ↑ Nyon mongs dug, but in the General Guide, nyon mongs bdud (“the devil of afflictive emotion”).
- ↑ lus sems gnyis kyi de nyid shes na grol bar nges. This is clarified by the General Guide version: lus sems gnyis su yin de nyid bral na grol bar nges (“body and mind are two, and if those are separated, liberation is assured”). It describes the process of transference, the separation of the mind or consciousness from the body (f. 101a).
- ↑ lam, but in the General Guide (f. 105b) it is rbad khams (should be rbad kham), glossed as lta ba'i rbad khams (“great boasting of view”), one in the list of these eight characteristics necessary for a Severance practitioner who can cut off all adverse conditions in the daytime.
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