The Great Chariot

by Longchenpa | 268,580 words

A Commentary on Great Perfection: The Nature of Mind, Easer of Weariness In Sanskrit the title is ‘Mahāsandhi-cittā-visranta-vṛtti-mahāratha-nāma’. In Tibetan ‘rDzogs pa chen po sems nyid ngal gso’i shing rta chen po shes bya ba ’...

Part 2 - Being encompassed in and perfected as the great miracle

a. Inseparable appearance and emptiness are primordially the same

Therefore, all dharmas are primordially and universally included in and perfected as the wondrously- arisen nature of the great perfection:

Inseparable and primordial appearance and emptiness
Are simple, without perception of either one or many.
With neither bias or partiality, all is equal.
It is equally appearance and equally emptiness;
It is equally true and equally it is falsehood.
It is equal in existence and equal in nonexistence.
Also it is equal in transcending all extremes,
In being the single space of primordial purity.

All dharmas are non-dual appearance/ emptiness beyond complexities of one and many, like space. There is nothing solid and definite to them at all. The All-Creating King says:

All dharmas have a nature like the sky.
As for the sky itself, it is natureless.
There is no example of the sky.
All these dharmas, without the least exception,
Should be known to really be like that.

Really equality like space, appearances are all equally like reflections in a mirror. They are equally[1] emptiness, in having no intrinsic identity of their own. From the viewpoint of confused mind, they are equal in truly existing only in the sense of having causal power. For example, either a form or a reflection can produce form-grasping awareness within the eye-consciousness. They are equally false, in that their natureless state is confused appearance, like the hallucinations created by eating dhatura plants.

They are equally existent, as emanations exhausted in their mere appearance. They are equally non- existent, since their nature is not established, like water in a mirage. They are equally beyond extremes, like pure space. They are primordially equal, as the space of dharmata beyond division or clearing away, which is without example. As for their being primordially empty, the Noble Sutra of the Clouds of the Three Jewels (‘phags pa dkon mchog sprin gyi mdo) says:

Dharmas, primordial emptiness, never come into being,
They have no going or staying, bereft of all existence.

There is never an essence in their illusory nature.
Pure of everything, completely like the sky,

The dharmas of the Conqueror have so been taught.
Since dharmas are not exhausted,[2] that has not been seen.

These dharmas were already selfless, and there are no sentient beings.
Though they were fully taught, they have not been exhausted.

On observing merely eternity, that is what was taught.
Samsara and the conventional were not found at all.

At first these have no rising, and at last no marks.
But, in order that future time could be known about

Karma and performance of action thus were dealt with:
That arose for both for the best and the lower ones.

Dharmas are eternal peace that is empty of nature. |
They should also all be known as selflessness.

The Moon Lamp explains it the same way.

b. All mentally imputed labelings are empty of essence Thus,

All that is labeled by mind is empty of any essence.
Names are arbitrary, and intrinsic characteristics
Of individual things are only exaggeration.
There is no true nor false, No grasping and fixation,
No connection of mind and object. One does not cover the other.

The doctrines of the skandhas, dhatus, and so forth are explained to be mere mental imputations. Mentally imputed dharmas do not exist, and so they are empty of essence. All imputations of names have no reality, internal or external. They are incidental and unestablished. The imputation, “This is a real object that is a specifically characterized phenomenon” exhausts itself as mere name and conceptual picture. Though imputed objects have been maintained to be like a fire arising from kindling, like fire in a dream, the natures of these apparent forms of confused habitual patterns are not established. All appearances of the confused viewpoint of samsara are mere superimposed projections. In that sense, from the time such objects appear, they are equal in being only false.

However, if we analyze apparent objects and the awareness that fixates them, there are neither truth or falsity. Object and perceiver are like space. There are neither related object nor relationship, and so relationship is not real. There is nothing that has anything to do with anything else. Not only does relationship not exist, but though general and particular, are set forth by the mind, there are no universally characterized or specifically identifiable phenomena. Therefore, general and particular

characteristics are equally either not imputable, or by being imputed, they neither add or subtract anything, because these characteristics are equal.

So what if relationship and the fixated objects of grasping and fixation are shown by analysis not to exist? Then all the fixations of fools are confused. A small child has no such superimposed doctrines and distinctions, but later becomes accustomed to projecting obscurations drawn from doctrines of bad learning. The Complete Ascertainment (rnam nges) says:

Beings become strictly rigid,
Not seeing how virtue is harmed.
Kye ma! Who propagated
These unbearable devils of doctrine.

The Middle Length Prajñaparamita says:

Subhuti, all dharmas are mere symbols, mere imputations. These mere symbols, mere imputations, are incidental. They are empty of essence.

c. Since mind emanates nothing, no objects arise.

As for the example of the instruction of not fixating this non-relationship:

Just as various forms appear within a mirror,
Phenomenal objects rise in the space of sense awareness.
By grasping them we feel desire and aggression.
Then there is the confusion of the samsaric world.
If there is close attention, mind is not projected.
No objective phenomena[3] will rise within the mind.
Being essenceless, they do not exist as two.

If a short passage about the well-known example is added to make this easier to understand, when the reflection of a face appears in a mirror, do one’s face and the reflection become two? Or is the reflection an object that appears to be like the face, while not going out of the face? Like that, as for appearance of various things in the individual faculties of the six senses, mind does not project itself outward as an external object. Nor do such objects appear within the phenomenal apprehension of sense awareness. The face does not project itself outward and become the appearance in the mirror; but the reflected face or phenomenon there is known to be like it.

When phenomena arise, the way they are grasped by mind is samsaric confusion. If these objects are analyzed, mind is not externally projected, and the external phenomena allegedly apprehended do not “arise internally” and exist in that way.

The mind of phenomenal arising is not established externally, internally, or in between. Then the fixator of these phenomena does not exist either. If those phenomena are analyzed, they are

essenceless, because what arises is unestablished. Phenomena, object and perceiver are all things that could not possibly be established. The Mula-madhyamaka-karikas says:

Where are they supported? Where do they arise?
In brief, such things cannot exist as what they are.413
And since they cannot be something other than they are,
They are not nothingness, and they are not eternal.

d. Since object and mind are natureless, they are self-liberated.

Appearing like this:

Objects all are one in that they have no essence.
Theories all are one, as their objects cannot be grasped.
Appearance and mind are not two, but one primordial purity.
There is no need for analysis or examination.
They are a single fundamental liberation,

As the various things in a dream occur within a single state of sleep, all apparent variety is one in naturelessness. As appearances seem to arise continually, thoughts are one in their state of having no identifiable essence, just as waves are one in being states of water. Just as obscured vision is one with the eye-awareness that grasps it, appearance and mind are one within non-dual dharmata. Requiring no examination or analysis at all, transcending examination and analysis, the nature of this pleasure garden in the sky is taught to be that of the sky itself. The Samadhiraja Sutra says:

Just as with perception of your ego,
Train the mind with every kind of awareness.
The essence of all dharmas is emptiness.
They are completely pure like the space of the sky.

The All-Creating King says:

Thus, since all the dharmas of the phenomenal world
Are a unity within the unborn state,
No grasping and fixation are apprehended there.
Transcending all conceptions of either thought or speech,
Their nature is a single space that is like the sky

e. If we realize that what arises is self-liberated, that is sagacious

Also like that,

Non-dual samsara/nirvana, is one within the mind:
A variety of rivers are one within the ocean.
All has the equal taste of single co-emergence.
The change of four elements is one in the state of space:
One in freedom from mental negation or assertion,
One because whatever arises is liberation,
One in the purity of non-duality,
The play of waves is one with the water that is their substance.
Whoever can realize this is said to be sagacious.

As rivers flowing from the four directions are one within the ocean, samsara and nirvana are one within the mind. The All-Creating King says:

Both the environment and the inhabitants,
Buddhas and sentient beings, all the phenomenal world,
Were made by mind, and they are one within the mind.

Whatever changes there may be in the four elements, they never depart from space. So, whatever phenomenal experiences of the view, meditation, action, and fruition may arise, they are one within the co-emergent natural state. Tog rtse pa says:

That which is co-emergent with the natural state
Is all of one taste with that, and it is one with that.

Assertions and negations that arise within the mind are one in being empty, because they have moved from the suchness of co-emergent wisdom. As waves are one with water, what arises is one with the unborn. The complexities of mind are one with the nature of mind. That nature is primordially without emanation and gathering. The Embodiment of the Intention says:

Complexity has no complexity.

Discursive thoughts dissolve in the ground like water mixing with water. The Dohakosha says:

As when water is poured into water,
The waters becomes of one taste;
Lord Buddha does not see

Minds having faults and virtues. The Lord Buddha is the nature of mind without complexity, beyond objects of seeing. Those who know that are sagacious. The Avatamsaka Sutra says:

To completely analyze the meaning, in the words of the sagacious there are no conceptualized thoughts.

It is taught like that.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

rang mtshan: individualizing characteristics.

[2]:

They cannot be made empty, being empty already.

[3]:

Which purport to be apprehensions of external objects other than oneself.

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