Flight of the Garuda
Songs Six to Nine
SONG SIX: Initiation into our true existential condition
EHMAHO! Again, beloved children of my heart, listen! "Mind", this universal
concept, this most significant of words, being no single entity, manifests as the gamut of
pleasure and pain in samsara and nirvana. There are as many beliefs about it as there are
approaches to Buddhahood. It has innumerable synonyms.
In the vernacular it is "I"; some Hindus call it "the Self"; the
Disciples say "self-less individual"; the followers of Mind-only call it simply
"mind"; some call it "perfect insight"; some call it
"Buddha-nature"; some call it "the Magnificent Stance" (Mahamudra);
some call it "the Middle Way"; some call it "the cosmic seed"; some
call it "the reality-continuum"; some call it "the universal ground";
some call it "ordinary consciousness". Since the synonyms of "mind",
the labels we apply to it, are countless, know it for what it really is. Know it
experientially as the here and now. Compose yourself in the natural state of your mind's
nature.
When at rest the mind is ordinary perception, naked and unadorned; when you gaze
directly at it there is nothing to see but light; as Awareness, it is brilliance and the
relaxed vigilance of the awakened state; as nothing specific whatsoever, it is a secret
fullness; it is the ultimacy of nondual radiance and emptiness.
It is not eternal, for nothing whatsoever about it has been proved to exist. It is not
a void, for there is brilliance and wakefulness. It is not unity, for multiplicity is
self-evident in perception. It is not multiplicity, for we know the one taste of unity. It
is not an external function, for Awareness is intrinsic to immediate reality.
In the immediate here and now we see the face of the Original Lord abiding in the heart
centre. Identify yourself with him, my spiritual sons. Whoever denies him, wanting more
from somewhere else, is like the man who has found his elephant but continues to follow
its tracks. He may comb the three dimensions of the microcosmic world systems for an
eternity, but he will not find so much as the name of Buddha other than the one in his
heart.
Such is my introduction initiating recognition of our true existential condition, which
is the principal realization in Cutting Through to the Great Perfection.
SONG SEVEN: Assertion of our Intrinsic Buddhahood
EHMAHO! Once more listen attentively, my noble sons and daughters. The three modes of
Buddha's being -- essence, nature and responsiveness -- and the five modes of being, as
well as the five aspects of primal awareness, all are completed and perfected in the
naturally luminous intrinsic awareness of the here and now.
The essence of Awareness, indefinable by any term such as colour, shape or other
attribute, is the dharmakaya; the inherent radiance of emptiness is the light of the
sambhogakaya; and the unimpeded medium in which all things manifest is the nirmanakaya.
The three modes are explained figuratively like this: the dharmakaya is a crystal
mirror; the sambhogakaya is its nature -- brilliant clarity; and the nirmanakaya is the
unobstructed medium in which the reflection appears.
From the first, people's minds have existed as these three modes of being. If they are
able to recognize this spontaneously, it is unnecessary for them to practise even so much
as a moment of formal meditation -- the awakening to Buddhahood is instantaneous.
In this introduction to the three modes they are defined separately. In truth, my
heart-children, do not fall into the error of believing them to be separate, belonging to
different continuums.
From the beginning, the three modes of being are empty and utterly pure. Understanding
them as a single essence that is the union of radiance and emptiness, conduct yourself in
a state of detachment.
The triad of essence, nature and responsiveness, again, corresponds to dharmakaya,
sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. Understanding these three as the mystic union of emptiness
and radiance, conduct yourself in a state of detachment.
Further, since the primal awareness of self-existing Awareness manifests everything
whatsoever, this awareness is the pure-being of the Creator, Vairocana; since it is
unchanging and unchangeable, it is the pure-being of Immutable Diamond, Aksobhya-vajra;
since it is without centre or circumference, it is the pure-being of Boundless Light-form,
Amitabha; since it is also the gem that is the source of supreme realization and relative
powers, it is the pure-being of the Fountain of Jewels, Ratnasambhava; since it
accomplishes all aspiration, it is the pure-being of the Fulfiller of All Ambition,
Amoghasiddhi. These deities are nothing but the creative power of Awareness.
The primal awareness of Awareness is mirror-like awareness because of the manifest
clarity of its unobstructed essence. It is awareness of sameness because it is
all-pervasive. It is discriminating awareness because the entire gamut of diverse
appearances is manifest from its creativity. It is the awareness that accomplishes all
actions because it fulfils all our ambition. It is awareness of the reality-continuum, the
dharmadhatu, because the single essence of all these aspects of awareness is primal
purity. Not so much as an atom exists apart from these which are the creativity of
intrinsic Awareness.
When a pointed finger introduces you directly and immediately to the three modes --
essence, nature and responsiveness -- and the Five Buddhas and the five aspects of
awareness, all together, then what is experienced is brilliant, awakened Awareness
unaffected by circumstance and uninfluenced by clinging thought; it is cognition of the
here and now, unstructured and unaffected.
All the Buddhas of the three aspects of time arise from this Awareness. Constantly
identify yourselves with it, beloved sons and daughters, because this is the spirituality
of all the Buddhas of the three aspects of time.
Awareness is unstructured, natural radiance your own mind, so how can you say that you
cannot see the Buddha? There is nothing at all to meditate upon in it, so how can you
complain that meditation does not arise? It is manifest Awareness, your own mind, so how
can you say that you cannot find it? It is a stream of unceasing radiant wakefulness, the
face of your mind, so how can you say that you cannot see it? There is not so much as a
moment of work to be done to attain it, so how can you say that your effort is unavailing?
Centred and dispersed states are two sides of the same coin, so how can you say that your
mind is never centred? Intrinsic Awareness is the spontaneously originated three modes of
being, which is achieved without striving, so how can you say that your practice fails to
accomplish it? It is enough to leave the mind in a state of non-action, so how can you say
that you are incapable of attaining it? Your thoughts are released at the moment of their
inception, so how can you say that the antidotes were ineffective? It is cognition of the
here and now, so how can you say you do not perceive it?
SONG EIGHT: The Method of Attaining Conviction
EHMAHO! Once again, beloved sons and daughters, listen with devotion! "Mind in its
insubstantiality is like the sky." Is this true or false, my children? Confirm it by
relaxing completely and looking directly at the mind, gazing with your entire mind, free
of all tension.
"The emptiness of the mind is not just a blank nothingness, for without doubt it
is the primal awareness of intrinsic Awareness, radiant from the first. Self-existent,
natural radiance is like sunlight." Is this indeed true? To confirm it, relax
completely, looking directly at the nature of your mind.
"There is no doubt that it is impossible to objectify or grasp thought or the
movement of memory. This capricious, changeable movement is like the cosmic wind!" Is
this indeed so? To confirm it, relax completely, looking directly at the nature of your
mind.
"Without doubt all appearances whatsoever are our own manifestation. All
phenomena, whatsoever manifests, is like reflection in a mirror." Is this indeed so?
To confirm it, relax completely, looking directly at the nature of your mind.
No experience is possible anywhere but in the mind, so there is nothing to see other
than that seen at the moment of vision. No experience is possible anywhere but in the
mind, so there is nothing to meditate upon other than mind. No experience is possible
anywhere but in the mind, so there is nothing to do other than what is done in the mind.
No experience is possible anywhere but in the mind, so there is no samaya to be sustained
outside the mind. No experience is possible anywhere but in the mind, so there is no goal
to be reached that is not in the mind.
Look, look, and look again. Look at your own mind!
Project your attention into external fields of space, and, attentively watching the
nature of your mind, see if it moves. When you are convinced by observation that the mind
does not move, retract your attention and concentrate upon the mind within, and look
carefully for the projector of diffused thought. When you have decided that there is no
entity responsible for thought patterns, look carefully for the colour and shape of the
mind. When you arrive at the emptiness that has no colour or shape, look for a centre or
circumference. Certain that middle and margin are the same, search for an inside and an
outside. Finding no distinction between inside and outside, you arrive at Awareness, which
is as vast as the sky.
"By virtue of its all-penetrating freedom this Awareness that has no centre or
circumference, no inside or outside, is innocent of all partiality and knows no blocks or
barriers. This all-penetrating intrinsic Awareness is a vast expanse of space. All
experience of samsara and nirvana arises in it like rainbows in the sky. In all its
diverse manifestation it is but a play of mind."
You need only look out from the motionless space of intrinsic Awareness at all
experience, illusory like the reflection of the moon in water, to know the impossibility
of dividing appearances from emptiness.
"In a state of Awareness there is no separation of samsara and nirvana." Look
out from the motionless space of intrinsic Awareness at all experience, illusory like the
reflection in a mirror, and no matter what manifests it can never be tasted, its existence
can never be proved. In this dimension samsara and nirvana do not exist and everything is
the dharmakaya.
All beings wandering in the three realms of samsara remain trapped in dualism until
they realize that within their own perception resides the primal awareness that is the
ultimate identity of all experience of samsara and nirvana. Due to the power of the
delusive subject/object dichotomy, they hold samsara and nirvana to be different states of
mind. They remain bound because, where in truth there is nonduality, they see a duality.
In reality no distinction between samsara and nirvana can exist in anybody's mind.
However, when the worldly fool rejects some things and indulges in others, avoiding the
"bad" and cultivating the "good", despising one while loving another,
then due to partiality, prejudice and bias, aimlessly he wanders through successive lives.
Rather than attain the spontaneously accomplished three modes of intrinsic Awareness
without striving, thick-headed aspirants explore the techniques and stages of many
time-consuming methods of "self-improvement", leaving them no time to reach the
seat of the Buddha.
"Emphatically, all phenomenal appearances whatsoever are one's own vision."
Look out from the state of motionless intrinsic Awareness and all light-form and animate
existence is like reflection. Appearances are empty, sound is empty and indeed one's own
nature is originally empty.
Similarly, turn your attention inwards to the mind that is the viewer, and your thought
processes, naturally subsiding, are empty like the sky, unstructured, free of conceptual
elaboration, utterly indeterminable, beyond description, concept and expression of any
kind.
All events whatsoever are an illusory magical display of mind and all the magical
display of mind is baseless and empty. When you have realized that all events are your own
mind, all visual appearances become the empty dharmakaya.
Appearances are not binding. It is through attachment to them that beings are fettered.
Sever all delusive attachments, children of my heart!
SONG NINE: Mist Dream and Optical Illusion
EHMAHO! Best beloved, fearless sons and daughters, without applying the spur, the horse
will not gallop; without thorough churning, the butter will not separate; without detailed
explanation you will not be convinced of my meaning. So while I sing my long but lyrical
songs, listen in comfort, relaxed, without drooping ears!
Until you perceive all appearances as mind you will never realize the meaning of
emptiness. To facilitate this understanding, you favoured children must apply yourselves
fully to a diligent analysis and thorough search. Firstly, where do appearances come from?
Secondly, where are they now? Lastly, where do they go?
During your examination you will see that just as mist arises out of the sky and
dissolves back into the sky, appearances are the magical display of your mind, arising in
the mind and vanishing back into it.
Take as an example the shimmering effect seen by a man with an impaired sense of vision
when he gazes ahead. Although the shimmering appears to exist in front of his eyes,
nothing is there -- it is an optical illusion.
In the same way, when mental functions are impaired by negative propensities that cause
clinging to apparently external objects as discrete and substantial entities, then visual
and auditory phenomena appear to exist where not so much as an atom can be proved to have
ultimate reality. Everything is a figment of the mind.
All these figments of mind are baseless and empty. They are non-existent light-forms,
apparition and magical illusion, like the reflection of the moon in water. Compose
yourself in the reality of inseparable appearance and emptiness!
Now in our sleep we may dream of our native country, our parental home, and our
relatives or friends, as if they were actually present, and an appropriate strong feeling
may arise. Although our family and friends are not actually present and we have not
stirred an inch from our beds, we may experience a face-to-face encounter with them of the
same vivid intensity as in the waking state.
Each and every sensual experience of our lives is an experience similar to last night's
dream. Just as we attach labels to dream entities, objectifying and clinging to them as
substantial entities, so appearances are modified and apprehended by mind in the waking
state. In the same way that dreams have no substance, so the figments of the mind, all
appearances whatsoever, are also empty.
The Prayer of Kuntu Zangpo
Stanzas Four to Eleven
(4) My apparitional emanation an unceasing stream
I project incalculable myriads of forms
Displaying manifold illusion to convert all beings,
Whosoever and whatsoever they may be.
Through this, my compassionate wish-granting prayer,
May all creatures of samsara's three realms
Escape the destinies of the six types of being.
(5) In the first place, deluded sentient beings
Lacked attentiveness and were bewildered
Because Awareness did not arise in the ground:
This is the primary cause of ignorance and delusion.
There followed a sudden fainting away
Causing feelings of dread and neurotic vacillation;
"I" was alienated from a hostile "other", "the enemy",
And the mind progressively conditioned by this tendency
Samsara was established as a way of life.
The five poisons increasing, defilement resulted
And karma, five times poisoned, became an interminable stream.
Since the cause of sentient beings' delusion
Is unmindfulness and absence of Awareness,
Through this, my wish-granting prayer, the Buddha's aspiration,
May everyone recognize Awareness spontaneously.
(6) "Innate ignorance"
(Accompanying each moment of perception)
Implies unmindful, distracted cognition,
And "conceptual ignorance"
(Selecting, structuring and labelling)
Implies dualistic cognition.
This twofold ignorance, innate and conceptual,
Forms the basis of all beings' delusion.
Through this, the Buddha's wish-granting prayer,
In all of samsara's sentient beings --
The gloom of their fogged, distracted minds dissolving,
Dualistic perception unified in pellucid clarity --
Let there be spontaneous recognition of Awareness.
(7) The dualizing intellect is doubtful, fearful and insecure;
It breeds subtle cravings
That gradually crystallize into overt, compulsive desires:
Desire for food, wealth and clothing, home and friends,
For fivefold sensual pleasure and loving companions,
And the tormented yearning of sexual attraction.
All these, the obsessions of temporal, worldly delusion,
The karma of an ego craving objects, are never exhausted.
When the fruit of craving ripens,
Tormented by frustrated desire
There is rebirth as a hungry ghost.
Ah, the misery of hunger and thirst!
Through this, the Buddha's wish-granting prayer,
Neither repressing or rejecting the pangs of frustration
Nor accepting or indulging obsessive lusts,
May all beings possessed by compulsive desires
Be released from the stresses of dualistic perception.
May Awareness resume its natural primacy
And All-discriminating Awareness be attained.
(8) Confronted by appearances of external objects
There is tremulous vibration of fear in cognition.
When the tendency to aversion crystallizes as hatred,
Enmity breeds violent aggression leading to killing.
When the fruit of hatred ripens,
Ah, the agony of burning and boiling in hell!
Through this, the Buddha's wish-granting prayer,
When aggressive hatred erupts
Neither inhibiting nor indulging it
But relaxing and releasing the stress,
May Awareness resume its natural primacy.
May all the six types of beings
Attain the Awareness of Radiant Clarity.
(9) When the mind is inflated with confidence,
The intellect scornfully contending with others
Breeds a mind full of arrogant pride,
Creating violent confrontation or war
And all of its consequent suffering.
When the fruit of such karma ripens
A god is born, heir to decay and eventual downfall.
Through this, the Buddha's wish-granting prayer,
May all beings prone to inflated confidence,
At its onset, relax, releasing the stress in perception,
Allowing Awareness to resume its natural primacy
Attaining the Awareness of Sameness.
(10) The crystallized tendencies of an alienated mind,
Elevating self and diminishing others,
Breed the karma of contention and violent aggression.
This leads to rebirth as a murderous titan
In the anti-gods' realm of constant conflict,
Where downfall into hell is the final outcome.
Through this, the Buddha's wish-granting prayer,
When contention or violent confrontation arises,
May you break the habit of conceiving of others as enemies
And relax, releasing the stress in perception,
Allowing pure sensory consciousness its primacy,
Thus attaining the Awareness of Unhindered Action.
(11) Unmindfulness, apathy and a wandering mind,
Dullness, torpor and forgetfulness,
Languor, laziness and stupidity,
Result in rebirth as a wandering, homeless beast.
Through this, the Buddha's wish-granting prayer,
May the radiance of mindful clarity dawn
In the gloom of sloth and depression
To bring Awareness of a Silent Mind.
