Part 5 - The examples of naturelessness

These appearances of what does not exist, though like an illusion, appear to arise and so forth:

From the time they appear, their birth and such are natureless,
Like water in a mirage, or the moon’s form in a pond.

Like the moon in water or the water in a mirage, from the very time they appear to arise, they should be realized to be unborn and so forth. The Secret Essence says:

E Ma Ho! Wondrous marvelous Dharma.
This is the secret of all the perfected buddhas.
All that there is was born from the unborn.
Yet all this from its birth is birthlessness.

E Ma Ho! Wondrous marvelous Dharma.
This is the secret of all the perfected buddhas.
From the unceasing comes everything that ceases.
Yet in cessation this is ceaselessness.

E Ma Ho! Wondrous marvelous Dharma.
This is the secret of all the perfected buddhas.
From the non-enduring comes everything that endures.
Yet the time of enduring itself does not endure.

E Ma Ho! Wondrous marvelous Dharma.
This is the secret of all the perfected buddhas.
From the inconceivable comes all that is conceived,
Yet conception itself is inconceivable.

E Ma Ho! Wondrous marvelous Dharma.
This is the secret of all the perfected buddhas.
From what neither comes nor goes there is coming and going.
The nature of coming and going never comes or goes.

The Dohakosha says:

As various rivers all are one in the ocean,
Many false things are overcome by one truth.
By the appearance of the single sun,
Many darknesses are overcome.

Though clouds receiving water from the ocean
May spread until they cover all the earth,
If we are inside, they are like pure space,
There is no increase, and there is no decrease.

The Buddha’s perfection is completely fulfilled.
Co-emergence is the single nature.
As that all sentient beings arise and cease.
Within it there are neither things or non-things.

As narrow waters become one in the ocean, what appears to be born is the singularity of the unborn. As many darknesses are overcome by the single lamp of the sun, by knowing the single unborn, all confused appearances are also known as the unborn.

When clouds arise and cover the earth, within them there is nothing solid that is great or small or increases and decreases; just so, arising from unborn dharmata, the dharmin appears to arise and cease, but within the unborn nothing increases and decreases at all.

Though within the naturally pure nature of mind, all beings are confused by attachment and grasping, their nature has never moved from the nature of mind. This is because mind itself is the primordially pure nature of things.

The Commentary Ascertaining the Intention (dgongs pa nges par ‘grel pa) says:

Subhuti said, “formerly when the Lord and I were in a forest, a monk was also there. By perceiving various dharmas, we communicated. Some said that was by perceived by the skandhas, some by the ayatanas, some by the dhatus, some by interdependent arising and the objects of mindfulness. I said that since the marks of one such Dharma are known to be selfless, they cannot but all be like that.”