Tilopa's Song to
Naropa
Mahamudra, the royal way, is free
from every word and sacred symbol. For you alone, beloved Naropa, this wonderful
song springs forth from Tilopa as spontaneous friendship that never ends. The
completely open nature of all dimensions and events is a rainbow always
occurring yet never grasped. The way of Mahamudra creates no closure. No
strenuous mental effort can encounter this wide open way. The effortless freedom
of awareness moves naturally along it.
As space is always freshly appearing
and never filled, so the mind is without limits and ever aware. Gazing with
sheer awareness into sheer awareness, habitual, abstract structures melt into
the fruitful springtime of Buddhahood.
White clouds that drift through blue
sky, changing shape constantly, have no root, no foundation, no dwelling; nor do
changing patterns of thought that float through the sky of mind. When the
formless expanse of awareness comes clearly into view, obsession with thought
forms ceases easily and naturally.
As within the openness of universal
space, shapes and colors are spontaneously forming, although space has no color
or form. So within the expanse of awareness realms, relations and values are
arising, although awareness possesses no positive or negative
characteristics.
As the darkness of night, even were
it to last a thousand years, could not conceal the rising sun, so countless ages
of conflict and suffering cannot conceal the innate radiance of Mind.
Although philosophers explain the
transparent openness of appearances as empty of permanent characteristics and
completely indeterminable, this universal indeterminacy can itself never be
determined.
Although sages report the nature of
awareness to be luminosity, this limitless radiance cannot be contained within
any language or sacramental system. Although the very essence of Mind is to be
void of either subjects or objects, it tenderly embraces all life within its
womb.
To realize this inexpressible truth,
do not manipulate mind or body, but simply open into transparency with relaxed,
natural grace, intellect at ease in silence, limbs at rest in stillness like
hollow bamboos. Neither breathing in nor breathing out with the breath of
habitual thinking, allow the mind to be at peace in brilliant
wakefulness.
This is the royal wealth of
Mahamudra, no common coin of any realm. Beloved Naropa, this treasure of
Buddhahood belongs to you and to all beings.
Obsessive use of meditative
disciplines or perennial study of scripture and philosophy will never bring
forth this wonderful realization, this truth which is natural to awareness,
because the mind that desperately desires to reach another realm or level of
experience inadvertently ignores the basic light that constitutes all
experience.
The one who fabricates any division
in consciousness betrays the friendship of Mahamudra. Cease all activity that
separates, abandon even the desire to be free from desires and allow the
thinking process to rise and fall smoothly as waves on a shoreless
ocean.
The one who never dwells in abstraction
and whose only principle is never to divide or separate upholds the trust of
Mahamudra. The one who abandons craving for authority and definition, and never
becomes one-sided in argument or understanding, alone perceives the authentic
meaning hidden in the ancient scriptures.
In the blissful embrace of
Mahamudra, negative viewpoints and their instincts are burned without remainder,
like camphor. Through the open door of Mahamudra, the deluded state of
self-imprisonment is easily left behind forever. Mahamudra is the torch of
supreme liberty shining forth through all conscious beings.
Those beings constituted by
awareness who try to ignore, reject or grasp awareness inflict sorrow and
confusion upon themselves like those who are insane.
To be awakened from this madness,
cultivate the gracious friendship of a sublime sage of Mahamudra, who may appear
to the world as mad. When the limited mind enters blessed companionship with
limitless Mind, indescribable freedom dawns.
Selfish or limited motivations
create the illusory sense of imprisonment and scatter seeds of further delusion.
Even genuine religious teaching can generate narrowness of vision. Trust only
the approach that is utterly vast and profound.
The noble way of Mahamudra never
engages in the drama of imprisonment and release. The sage of Mahamudra has
absolutely no distractions, because no war against distractions has ever been
declared. This nobility and gentleness alone, this nonviolence of thought and
action, is the traceless path of all Buddhas. To walk this all-embracing way is
the bliss of Buddhahood.
Phenomena on every plane of being
are constantly arising and disappearing. Thus they are forever fresh, always new
and inexhaustible. Like dreams without solid substance, they can never become
rigid or binding. The universe exists in a deep, elusive way that can never be
grasped or frozen. Why feel obsessive desire or hatred for it, thereby creating
illusory bonds?
Renounce arbitrary, habitual views.
Go forth courageously to meditate in the real mountain wilderness, the wide open
Mahamudra. Transcend boundaries of kinship by embracing all living beings as one
family of consciousness. Remain without any compulsion in the landscape of
natural freedom: spontaneous, generous, joyful. When you receive the crown of
Mahamudra, all sense of rank or attainment will quietly disappear.
Cut the root of the vine that chokes
the tree, and its clinging tendrils wither away entirely. Sever the
conventionally grasping mind, and all bondage and desperation
dissolve.
The illumination from an oil lamp
lights the room instantly, even if it has been dark for aeons. Mind is boundless
radiance. How can the slightest darkness remain in the room of daily perception?
But one who clings to mental processes cannot awaken to the radiance of
Mind.
Strenuously seeking truth by
investigation and concentration, one will never appreciate the unthinkable
simplicity and bliss that abide at the core. To uncover this fertile ground, cut
through the roots of complexity with the sharp gaze of naked awareness,
remaining entirely at peace, transparent and content. You need not expend great
effort nor store up extensive spiritual power. Remain in the flow of sheer
awareness. Mahamudra neither accepts nor rejects any current of energy, internal
or external.
Since the ground consciousness is
never born into any realm of being, nothing can add to or subtract from it.
Nothing can obstruct or stain it. When awareness rests here, the appearance of
division and conflict disappears into original reality. The twin emotions of
anxiety and arrogance vanish into the void from which they came.
Supreme knowing knows no separate
subject or object. Supreme action acts resourcefully without any array of
instruments. Supreme attainment attains the goal without past, future or
present.
The dedicated practitioner
experiences the spiritual way as a turbulent mountain stream, tumbling
dangerously among boulders. When maturity is reached, the river flows smoothly
and patiently with the powerful sweep of the Ganges. Emptying into the ocean of
Mahamudra, the water becomes ever-expanding light that pours into great Clear
Light without direction, destination, division, distinction or
description.
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