Part Six: Texts Taken from The Trilogy of Natural Openness and Freedom
Longchenpa’s Trilogy of Natural Openness and Freedom consists of three root texts referring in sequence to the nature of the mind, the dharmatā, and the state of equality. These root texts are in verse, and each is accompanied by a meditation guide. In Longchenpa’s catalog of his own works,1 titles are given for what appear to be autocommentaries on the three sections of the trilogy. Alas, they seem to have been lost. In the present volume of The Treasury of Precious Instructions, Jamgön Kongtrul decided to include only the meditation guide and an accompanying prayer—but not the root text itself—of the first part of the trilogy, The Natural Openness and Freedom of the Nature of the Mind. For the second and third parts of the trilogy, only root texts, but no meditation guides, are included. There is no obvious explanation for this inconsistency.
The second and third parts of the trilogy, The Natural Openness and Freedom of the Dharmatā and The Natural Openness and Freedom of the State of Equality, are each divided into three subsections—the former according to ground, path, and result and the latter according to view, meditation, and action. Other than this, these two root texts are composed in uninterrupted verse. As an aid to the reader and in order to create a system of reference useful for the student, we have divided both these poems into short stanzas of unequal length according to the perceived manner in which the content of the two texts is developed. It should be remembered that there are no such stanzas in the root texts themselves and that this arrangement is no more than the artificial but well-intentioned suggestion of the translators.
Of general interest is the fact that, according to Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, this trilogy is, to all intents and purposes, a meaning commentary on the mind-class teachings of the Great Perfection, specifically the All-Creating King Tantra, which is one of its most important scriptures.
In the absence of auto-and other commentaries, the translation of the root texts, which are in part extremely terse, was not easy and, despite our best efforts and the help of Tibetan scholars, remains in part conjectural.