Guhyagarbha Tantra (with Commentary)
by Gyurme Dorje | 1987 | 304,894 words
The English translation of the Guhyagarbha Tantra, including Longchenpa's commentary from the 14th century. The whole work is presented as a critical investigation into the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, of which the Guhyagarbhatantra is it's principle text. It contains twenty-two chapters teaching the essence and practice of Mahayoga, which s...
Text 2.16 (Commentary)
[Guhyagarbha-Tantra, Text section 2.16]
[But] not bound by any agent, bondage is non-existent.
There is not an object to be bound.
By egotistical conceptual thoughts
Knots in the sky are urgently tied and untied. [16] ...[Tibetan]
sus-kyang ma-bcings bcings-med-de / bcing-bar bya-ba yod-ma-yin / rnam-rtog bdag-tu 'dzin-pa-yis / nan-gyis mkha'-la mdud-pa 'dor / [16]
Commentary:
[The third teaches that there is neither bondage nor liberation from the very moment when bewilderment appears.—It comments on Ch. 2.16:]
Despite such afflictions caused by the many kinds of happiness and suffering in saṃsāra, in the abiding nature, as in space, all living beings are not bound (ma-bcings) by any agent (sus-kyang) causing bondage. Even conflicting emotion which ostensibly appears as bondage (bcings) is actually non-existent (med-de) because there is not (yod-ma-yin) in fact a single living being or even the mind of a living being which is an object to be bound (bcing-bar bya-ba). If you ask, however, whence this ostensible bondage has emerged, bewilderment is fabricated, without actually occuring, by egotistical conceptual thoughts (rnam-rtog bdag-tu 'dzin-pa-yis) which suddenly arise. It is as if, for example, one has urgently (nan-gyis) or purposefully imagined a rope to appear in the sky (mkha'-la) before one, and then tied and untied ('dor) many knots (mdud-pa) in it. One’s own mind-as-such is originally pure like the sky, but it appears as the bewilderment of saṃsāra because it has contrived many modes of refutation and proof, or of subject and object. Just as a knot in the sky also seems more veridical the longer this intellectual effort is not abandoned and yet nothing is actually tied. this bewildering appearance of saṃsāra is more veridical the longer one does not abandon one’s attachment to the subject-object dichotomy, and yet it is actually not veridical at all.
[iv. The diffusion of spirituality’s display in order that this reality might be revealed (110.5-111.2):]
Fourth, there is the diffusion of spirituality in order that this reality might be revealed. (It comments on Ch. 2, 17):
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