Part 1 - Those of the highest powers

a. How the very highest will be liberated by realization

As for meditaters:

There are levels of this teaching for those of different capacities.
Those of the highest powers will be liberated
By their realization of the natural state.
Meditation and its object are seen to be non-dual.
The phenomenal world is liberated as the ground.
In the nature of mind there is neither action nor effort.
Impartial insight flows along like the stream of a river.

Having the good fortune of formerly accumulated merit, those of the highest powers, with the condition of the holy guru, are liberated just by realizing the genuine state, the nature of mind like the sky that transcends meditation and meditater. Without needing to work at meditation, their constant yogic union with the nature of mind is like the stream of a river. The All-creating King says:

Kye! what is taught by me, the teacher, the doer of all,
Is the all-inclusive unborn, completely pure samadhi.
Not depending on coarse conditions of meditating or not,
Whatever Dharma appear are the object of meditation.
There is no particular way of where and how to rest.
Liberation of things as they are without seeking is meditation.

Kye! Within these oral instructions of non-meditation,
Since this is the meaning that goes beyond words and speech,
No former generations taught the doer of all.
Later ones too will never teach the doer of all.
Even now the doer of all is not being taught.

Kye! By the teacher of teachers, the doer of all, the King,
The unerring meaning of realization is being taught.
The essence beyond all glorification and denigration,
Like meditation and non-meditation disputing in space.

b. Perfect mastery free from meditation and meditater

When the intention of this is perfected, as for the goal of this meditation:

We cannot delineate sessions with a definite, “This is it.”
All is self-liberated as the field of Samantabhadra.
Without any signs and any criteria that have to be met,
The self existing vast expanse that is the ground,
Remains in the state that it has been in from the beginning,
Therefore there is no straying, nor any place to stray,
no exertion in action and nothing that is improved
By being convinced there is neither attainment nor non-attainment,
We are buddhas right now, and need not aspire to that.
Yogins like this become the universal sky.

When we have been liberated from attachment to true existence, there is no meditation on antidotes and, indeed, no meditation at all. There are no breaks between sessions. We continually abide in non-attachment to true existence. This play without fixation, self-liberation beyond partiality, is experience of the field of Samantabhadra. The All-Creating King says:

Kye! If we have attained the empowerment of the King,
Insight makes no things, suchness always rises.
Absence of cause and conditions is the path of excellent peace.
Such resting in the ground is resting within suchness.

The great upaya of the King, the doer of all,
Is the empowerment of ultimate realization.
If we enter into all objects exactly as they are,
We know both faults and virtues as equality.

Thus we go quite beyond both entering and non-entering.
The changeless self-existence of the realm of the King
Is the self-perfected nature that has neither progress nor training.

As when we meditate on things and characteristics, there are no signs and criteria of success. The same text says:

As with the grasping at dharmas of things and characteristics,
Criteria and signs are non-existent, like space.

With nothing we are supposed to reach, there is nowhere to go astray. With nothing in particular we are supposed to look at, the seer can have no obscuration. The same text says:

As for this itself, the nature of bodhicitta,
It is the essence of all the Dharma without remainder.
The unborn is completely pure, completely unobscured,
Without a path to tread, there is no such thing as straying.

Because of straying, obscuration, purification, improvement, view, and meditation, we look right at the nature of mind without seeing it, and obscuration arises. Trying to progress where there is no progress is already straying. The same text says:

Within bodhicitta, the single nature of all dharmas,
Counting the one with numbers is straying and obscuration.
Progressing where there is no progress, straying rises.
By conceptual views of how things are without conception,
It will not be seen, and obscuration will rise.

From the time we become convinced that our own mind really is the primordial self-existence of buddhahood, we know enough not to aspire to any buddhahood other than that. From that very moment we abide on the level of buddhahood. The same text says:

Since the nature of mind was always completely enlightened,
We cannot succeed or fail, and there is no hope and fear.

Also:

Since I, the doer of all, am inclusive of everything,
Therefore I am explained to be complete perfection.
As the triple nature of me, the doer of all,
Teacher, teaching, and retinue all arise into being.
With them the label “doer of all” has also risen.”

First, as for nature of the perfect teacher,
From the self-arising wisdom of me, the doer of all,
The triple nature of the three kayas has arisen.
Trikaya is taught to be the three-fold perfect teacher.

Regarding such a mantra-yogin the same text says:

The individual body of a god or human being
Is realization, dharmata, and buddhahood.

c. The instruction of how intermediate and lesser ones should meditate

Those of average and low capacities
Have to make an effort to be familiar with this.
Until fixations of ego have subsided into space,
They must use various skillful means of meditation

Because we are not free of ego-grasping, the cause of samsara, those of us who are of average and lesser powers have to work hard at meditation.

Here there are distinctions between meditation and non-meditation and the grasping and fixation of mind subsiding or not subsiding into space. The All-Creating King says:

As for duality and pure non-dual wisdom
They are labeled as meditation and non-meditation.

d. The suitability of meditation

The suitability of meditation is because those who have not reached self-arising and self-liberation, have the usual ordinary thoughts:

Evil discursive thoughts have led them into samsara.^[1]
To be free from these they use the means of meditation.
Later the vast expanse of prajña will arise.
That is completely liberated from all extremes.

By conceptual discursive thoughts we fall into samsar. Dharmakirti’s Praise to Mañjushri says:

You fall in samsara’s ocean
By conceptions’ great ignorance.
When you do not have conceptions,
You will always pass beyond suffering.

The Jewel Heap Sutra says:

By constant conception we wander in the wilderness of samsara.
Because of constant formation of karma and the kleshas,
Hundreds of sufferings are made to manifest.

Since these are pacified by meditating, by doing so, the prajña in which all dharmas are perfectly liberated is sure to arise.

e. The need to unite shamatha and vipashyana

Beginning with one-pointed shamatha and vipashyana

Kleshas are first suppressed by means of shamatha.
Then, by vipashyana, they are eradicated.

The Jewel Cloud Sutra (ratnameghasutra, dkon mchog sprin) says:

By shamatha the kleshas are suppressed.
By vipashyana they turn into perfect enjoyment.

The Bodhicharyavatara says:

Having learned the kleshas will be overcome
By vipashyana possessing excellent shamatha;
First of all we should search for shamatha,
Established by genuine joy, without any worldly desire.

Regarding the single essence and the dualistic individual, resting or being in the former is shamatha. Luminosity or clarity of the latter is vipashyana. Shamatha and vipashyana are unified by realizing luminosity/emptiness free from extremes. This is liberation from samsara. The Friendly Letter says:

Without any prajña, dhyana will not exist.
Without any dhyana, also there is no prajña.
Where these exist as two, there is still samsara.
Get rid of it like a trace of polluted seas.

Difference has two divisions. There is difference according to words and difference according to the meaning. As for the first, hearing about one-pointed mind, is shamatha. Apprehending the meaning of this is vipashyana.

As for the second, by meditating, first, establishing one-pointedness is shamatha. Later, realizing that as natureless is vipashyana. The Jewel Cloud Sutra says:

Shamatha is one-pointed mind. Vipashyana distinguishes Dharma as they really are.

The Commentary Ascertaining the Intention says:

There are two kinds of shamatha and vipashyana, according to prajña and the oral instructions respectively. As for the one arising from prajña, mental comprehension of the words of the twelve aspects of sutra is shamatha. Realization of the meaning is vipashyana.

As for that arising from the oral instructions, producing motionless mind by the oral instructions is shamatha. Realization of the meaning of that is vipashyana.

f. The explanation of the reason The reason:

For the highest, evil thoughts dissolve in dharmakaya.^[2]
If there is no good nor evil, we need no antidote.

As the middle ones meditate on unity with clear brilliance,
Thoughts of good and evil vanish into space.
Then there is realization of unity like the sky.

Lower ones first must search for the peace of shamatha.^[3]
Attaining stability, whatever may be perceived.
Then, by vipashyana’s discriminating awareness,
By meditation, outer and inner, appearance and mind,
Arise within the great liberation as the ground:
Thus, it is important to know the gradation of powers.

Those who come to an island of gold, will not find ordinary rocks and stones there, even if they look for them. So, for those of supreme powers, whatever arises is liberated as dharmakaya. When the antidotes are liberated into space, meditation with sessions and breaks is unnecessary. The All- Creating King says:

In uncreated suchness, the Buddha’s realization,
How can conceptions of mind and mental events arise?

By knowing how to rest in unborn suchness itself,
We are free from characteristics of doing and seeking.

Average students, by realizing the view, rest within the unborn, clarity free from drowsiness and discursiveness, like a motionless undisturbed pond. By that they unify shamatha and vipashyana. After discursive thoughts subside into space, sky-like realization arises. The Sutra of True Samadhi (ting nge ‘dzin dam pa’i mdo) says:

In the dharmata of suchness as it is,
If we rest the mind that also is like that,
Experience unobstructed by names arises.
This is what is is that is called samadhi.

Lesser students, who are stirred up like unruly monkeys and can hardly rest at all, moisten the mind with one-pointed shamatha, Then, as a further antidote, by meditating on vipashyana they discriminate all dharmas as natureless emptiness and all appearances as illusion and so forth. By that they realize the unborn. The Sutra Requested by Maitreya says:

Having established shamatha, train in vipashyana.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

In particular, evil... Omitted for metrical reasons.

[2]:

“Therefore for...” Omitted for metrical reasons.

[3]:

zhi gnas, literally “resting in/existing as the ground.”