Part 1 - Passing the pass into the great perfection

a. The emptiness of apparent objects

Told now is the instruction of appearance and mind as primordial liberation that passes the pass into the nature of the great perfection:

Kye ho, my friends, look at apparent objects.
They are all the unborn. They are equal in emptiness.
Though various images may rise within a mirror,
They are the mirror surface, one in being its brightness.

When reflections arise in a mirror, there is really nothing there but the radiance of one bright mirror- surface, but still these forms appear. So all the dharmas of samsara are nothing other than the nature, emptiness. The Sutra Requested by Jönpa says:

As, in the disk of a mirror,
Faces may appear;
So unestablished dharmas
Ought to be known by Jönpa.

b. The projecting mind is emptiness

At the time of experiencing the naturelessness of all dharmas, as for appearances:

If we look at the mind projecting these distinctions,
Mind, like space, is free from affirming or denying.
Just as clouds in the sky arise and disappear,
The non-dual miracles of space are purity.
This is the spotless nature that is the primordial buddha.
This is self-existing unmade dharmata.

Awareness, producing the view, is liberated from projecting objects. The phenomena of object- appearance are purified in non-fixation. When clouds fade away after arising in the sky, they go nowhere but into space. Self-dissolving, they become invisible. As awareness is liberated from projecting objects, the three times, too, go into the space of realization.

The Samadhiraja Sutra says:

Just as in space that has no clouds at all,
Clouds are suddenly present everywhere,
And then, as they vanish, with no clouds anywhere,
They make us think they went from whence they came.
All dharmas should be known to be like that.

All dharmas first arose from or in the space of the unborn. Now they remain there. In the end, they will be liberated back into it. Awareness of what arises also first arose from the empty nature of mind. In the present it remains there. Finally it will cease there. That is how it should be known. The nature like that is the nature of primordial buddhahood. The All-Creating King says:

As for the nature of mind that is like the sky,
The essence of the primordial buddha, enlightenment,
It does not exist by effort and establishing.
Rest in that uncreated natural purity.

c. Body and mind are non-dual emptiness

Thus,

In primordial purity, mind and object are not two.
There is no receiving, and there is no letting go,
No bias or partiality, no negation or affirmation.
What appears has no true existence; what rises is emptiness.
All is equality, free from any reference point.

Apparent objects and fixation-producing awareness appear while neither of them exists, as they do within a dream. They are known without accepting and rejecting or affirmation and denial. The All- Creating King says:

That which is only one within the state of suchness,
Dharmata, appears as five kinds of separate objects.
There are the five desirable and undesirable things.^[1]
Then, in suchness, there is accepting and rejecting.

As these are appearances of self-arising wisdom,
They cannot be rejected by its own agency.
By this rejection that cannot be, there is samsara.

Whatever appears is empty of true existence, like the water in a mirage. When this is known, the essence of the reflection-like equal appearance of all dharmas should be trained in as mind without reference point.

d. External objects are uncertain, and mind has no reference points:

External:

Objects are uncertain, appearing in various ways.
In the great impartiality, mind has no reference points.
That should be known as the nature of the great perfection.

Appearances are not ascertained as any one particular thing, but seem to be a variety. The awareness that fixates them also has no reference points.^[2] Everything is liberated as the partless singularity of the great perfection The Great Space (nam mkha’ che) says:

Just as what appears is quite uncertain,
Mind is impartial and has no reference points.
Great space that does not need to be manufactured
Exists as the nature of the great perfection

e. The reason for these

As for establishing the reason:

Within the world of dharmas of samsara and nirvana,
The dharmas of the past are equality without concept.
The dharmas of the future are unborn equality.
The dharmas of the present are non-abiding equality.
The three times are timelessness, as equality with no ground.
Everything was always naturally complete.

As for this five-fold equality:

Since all dharmas are equal, they should be known to be without accepting and rejecting, and good and bad.

These dharmas of the phenomenal world are equal in that once they are gone, they will not return. Since future dharmas have not arisen, they are equal in not existing anywhere.

In the present they are equal because, if the apprehension that identifies inner and outer essences is examined, none are found.

Yet equally, when unexamined, they appear.

Reciting the Names of Mañjushri says:

Remain in realization that the three times are timelessness.

The three times are related by none of them being established in time. Since they are groundless, they are equally empty.

Because all things are unborn, they are also equal as the perfection of prajña.^[3] Their duration and cessation, from the time they appear, are similarly equal in not being established as anything whatsoever. The Middle length Prajñaparamita says:

Subhuti, since all dharmas are equality, the perfection of prajña too is equality.

The Sutra of Motionless dharmata (chos nyid mi g-yo ba’i mdo) says:

All dharmas by nature are unborn. By essence they are unmoving. They are free from
the extremes of action. They are beyond the objects of complexity. They are primordial equality.

f. The changeless nature of mind

Then regarding this,

The phenomenal world that consists of samsara and nirvana
Is nothing but an image reflected in the mind.
The nature of the mind is the great space of Dharmadhatu.
The nature of that space is changeless by the three times.
That changeless nature has been nirvana from the start.
That fundamental enlightenment is Samantabhadra.

Whatever appears is a reflection of confused habitual patterns, arising as if in the surface of a mirror. The Avatamsaka Sutra says:

Mind is like a painter.
Mind produced the skandhas.
All the worlds there are
Are paintings of the mind.

The phenomenal world is the destructible support, and the supported is the destructible inhabitants, sentient beings, within that destructible environment. By becoming familiar with the habitual patterns of confused mind, they appear to be non-existent from the time they arise like a dream. We gain that conviction about the confused appearances of apparent mind. We gain the conviction that appearance-fixating mind is empty like space. The Dohakosha says:

Mind should be grasped as being just like space.
The nature of space should be grasped as being mind.

As for becoming convinced that space is changeless, the All-Creating King says:

Just as the space of the sky is completely changeless,
The space of the nature of mind is also changeless.

What is changeless is the primordial peace of nirvana, the nature of Samantabhadra. The All- Creating King says:

This primordial purity, the unchanging nature of mind,
Is the self-existing essence, the doer of all, enlightenment.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Desirable and undesirable objects of the five senses.

[2]:

Mind has no fixed conceptions about reality.

[3]:

Which realizes that all things are equally emptiness.