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 eons. 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.
~
Writing:
Tilopa's Song to Naropa
Art:
Timothy
Sorsdahl
