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.
