TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Eighteen: Teaching the Mandala of Astounding Secrets.

Chapter Nineteen: The Astounding Meditation on the Bodhicitta.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Astounding Holiness of this Holy Secret.
Chapter One: A Summary of Our Roots.
Chapter Two: The First Recognition.
Chapter Three: The Second Recognition.
Chapter Four: The Third Recognition.
Chapter Five: The Fourth Recognition.
Chapter Six: External Signs.
Chapter Seven: The Tantra on the Wheel of Wisdom.
 Astounding
Five Tantras of the Mind Section
Translated by
Christopher Wilkinson
The painting on the cover of a fox is the work of Lobsang Jamyang, a master painter who is currently residing in
Dharamsala, India.
No Artificial Intelligence tools were used in this translation.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who
may quote excerpts in a review.
Independently Published
Copyright © 2023 Christopher Wilkinson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9798391883357

DEDICATION
To all teachers and students of the Great Perfection
Also Translated by Christopher Wilkinson
The Mahayana
Vajra Sky:
The Sutra that Brings Together the Contemplations of All the Buddhas
Volumes One, Two, and Three
The Mind Section
The All-Creating King: A Root Tantra of the Great Perfection
Atiyoga: The Eighteen Tantras
The Bodhicitta Sutra: Ten Scriptures of the Great Perfection
The Tantra of Great Bliss:
The Guhyagarbha Transmission of Vajrasattva’s Magnificent Sky
Secret Sky: The Ancient Tantras on Vajrasattva’s Magnificent Sky
The Space Section
Natural Bliss: Five Tantras of the Space Section
Star Light: Eight Early Tantras of the Space Section
Sky Space: The Royal Tantra on the Great Perfection of the Bodhicitta
The Royal Tantra on the Brilliant Diffusion of Majestic Space
The Great Tantra of Vajrasattva: Equal to the End of the Sky
Perfect Wisdom: Four Early Tantras of the Great Perfection
The Secret Tantras of the Fish Wheel and the Nine Spaces:
Two Ancient Scriptures of the Great Perfection
Secret Wisdom: Three Root Tantras of the Great Perfection
The Upadeśa Instruction Section
The Jewel Maker: The Great Tantra on the Consequence of Sound
The Lion Stops Hunting: An Upadesha Tantra of the Great Perfection
The Secret Kissing of the Sun and Moon:
Three Upadesha Tantras of the Great Perfection
The Six Spaces of the All Good: An Upadesha Tantra of the Great Perfection
A Mound of Jewels: Three Upadesha Tantras of the Great Perfection
A Subtle Arrangement of Gemstones:
Two Upadesha Tantras of the Great Perfection
The Mirror of the Heart of Vajrasattva:
Two Upadesha Tantras of the Great Perfection
The Pearl Necklace Tantra: Upadesha Instructions of the Great Perfection
Eight Early Tantras of the Great Perfection: An Elixir of Ambrosia
Other Great Perfection
The Great Jewel Blossom Tantra: Wisdom of the Great Perfection
Clear Meaning: The Force of Wisdom Tantra
The Magic Key:
Instructions on the Bodhicitta
Ten Early Tantras of the Great Perfection: A Basket of Diamonds
The Gods and the Demons Are Not Two: A Tantra of the Great Perfection
Beyond Secret:
The Upadesha of Vairochana on the Practice of the Great Perfection
The Sakya Kongma Series
The Poetic Wisdom of Sakya Pandita
Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsan: The Hermit King
Sonam Tsemo: Admission at Dharma’s Gate
Sachen Kunga Nyingpo: An Overview of Tantra and Related Works
Chogyal Phagpa: The Emperor’s Guru
Advice to Kublai Khan:
Letters by the Tibetan Monk Chogyal Phagpa to Kublai Khan and His Court
At the Court of Kublai Khan:
Writings of the Tibetan Monk Chogyal Phagpa

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments

Introduction
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I wish to thank my root teacher Dezhung Rinpoche for constantly
bringing out the best in me and encouraging me to pursue a comprehension of every
branch of Buddhist learning. It was he who introduced me to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and
through his recommendations enabled me to receive full empowerments, transmissions,
and permissions in the areas of Mahā, Anu, and Ati yogas. With the highest regard I wish to
thank Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Khetsun Zangpo Rinpoche, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, and
Khenpo Palden Sherab for their kind instruction and encouragement in my effort to
translate the literature of the rDzogs chen. There are many individuals, too many to name
here, who have helped me in many ways over the years to become a qualified translator. At
this time I want to acknowledge the kindness of Ngawang Kunga Trinlay Sakyapa, Jigdral
Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche, Dhongthog Rinpoche, Karmapa Rangjung Rigpay Dorje, Kalu
Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Geshe Ngawang Nornang, Carl Potter, David Ruegg,
Turrell Wylie, Gene Smith, Karen Lang, Richard Salomon, Jack Hawley, David Jackson,
Herbert Guenther, Eva Neumeier-Dargyay, Leslie Kawamura, Frits Staal, Robert Thurman,
Paul Nietupski, Lou Lancaster, David Snellgrove, Jean-Luc Achard, Sarah Harding, Steve
Landsberg, Tsultrim Allione, Carolyn Klein, Rob Mayer, Jonathan Silk, and Mark Tatz. I want
to thank Nora Staffanell for proofreading the manuscript. I also want to thank Bill Magee,
Ben Davidson, Michael Gregory, Robert J. Barnhart, Joel Shefflin, Rosanne Shaw,
Irv Beiman, John Hoag and the Dakini Land Foundation, whose support has helped to make
this translation possible. I owe special thanks to Lopsang Jamyang for painting the cover
art. The many people who have contributed to my understanding and ability to do this
work cannot be counted. I wish to thank everyone who has taken a kind interest in these
translations, however slight, for their part in making this work a reality.
INTRODUCTION
The literature of the Great Perfection, the Dzogchen or Atiyoga, has been divided into three
groups or sections: The Mind Section, the Space Section, and the Upadeśa Instruction
Section. The Tantras of the Astounding have been preserved among the works of the Mind
Section in the Nyingma Gyubum, the Hundred Thousand Tantras of the Ancients, having
been preserved by the Tibetans for over a thousand two hundred years. These works were
translated into Tibetan from Indian languages during the Eighth Century of our era.
Without the diligent work of constant preservation by the Tibetans and Bhutanese these
works would certainly have been lost to mankind.
These Tantras are indeed Astounding. You will not find anything like them. These Tantras
do not hold back on using language that forces us to reevaluate our every presupposition
about what Buddhism is and what our own enlightenment is.
For your convenience, and to help in the preservation of this ancient tradition, I have
included images of the Tibetan manuscript.
.
THE ASTOUNDING BODHICITTA
In the Indian language:
Bodhicitta Ratsanuha Tantra
In the Tibetan language:
Byang chub kyi sems rmad du byung ba’i rgyud
In the English language:
The Astounding Bodhicitta Tantra
 THE BASIC SCENE
I bow to the Blessed One,
The All Good One.
I heard these words on one occasion:
The Tathagata,
The Arhat,
The properly perfected Buddha,
The true spirit that is not separate from anyone,
Being a heart-essence that does not have any form,
Being the place of origin for every virtue,
Being the king of everything that we must know,
Was enjoying the total purity of the way that it is.
He was the root of all things,
Including our body of pleasure,
Our body of real enlightenment,
And our manifest body.
He was the true spirit of every wisdom that is pure.
He was someone who was non-dual.
He was the properly perfected All Good One.
Regarding this Blessed One of Great Compassion,
Regarding this mandala for the entourage of Bodhisattvas,
It is a body of very pure enjoyment
That creates an experience of great pleasure without limit
In the samadhi of every Dharma.
It is endowed with all the marks and exemplary features.
As for the body of our real enlightenment,
It is a body that emerges as a mandala
From out of our hearts.
The kings of the gods of the realm of desire
And the kings of the gods of the realm of form
Are in a mandala.
Mandalas of such things as vajras and jewels then emerge.
As for the body that I manifest,
He is wise in methods,
So he turns the wheel of the Dharma
In an undammed river.
Just as it is imagined everywhere.
He maintains practices
That are for every Buddha and sentient being.
He is ornamented with the marks and exemplary features
That turn out to be the base or essence
Of both the permanent and the impermanent.
This body has a face that is totally perfect.
With it he speaks out all the Dharmas,
Harmoniously and reverently.
He will come to speak to them.
Regarding this body that is very pure,
The mandalas of the way that it is,
The heart-essence of our enlightenment,
Are forever in time without any duality.
Regarding this great compassionate one
Who is the king of both the permanent and the impermanent,
The mandala of wisdom that has no base or measure,
Which includes self-originating ornaments and playfulness,
Condenses,
So that its clarity is in its self-origination.
As for the body of the Great Enlightened One,
At the peak of Mt. Meru
In a house of precious jewels
In a way that resembles a waxing moon,
He brilliantly opens his mouth.
Regarding this personage,
The very identity of all the practices
Of those who are skilled in methods,
He spread them out on the lotus of his tongue
On the mountain that was the Vulture Peak.
Then he lived there
In the style of a householder or a monk.
Then the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Vajradhara
The great Bodhisattva Holder of the Lotus Stem,
The great Bodhisattva Total Liberation of the Heart,
The great Bodhisattva Overcoming Nations,
The great Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī,
And all the rest
Were abiding in Essential Enlightenment,
Which is an extremely attractive abode.
They had found the integrity to speak
With their bodies apparent to everyone,
And they saw the abode where they would dwell.
The body of their pleasure was visible
In the dazzling clarity of their faces.
They used vajra trays and such things
To make offerings that included
Both external offerings and inner offerings.
They made circumambulations three times,
Keeping him on their right side,
Then they bowed and sat down.
The Blessed One is possessed of infinite forms
That appear in the way of great compassion
So toward those were magnificent
He made a smile with his face
Then he sat there,
Not saying anything at all.
Then the Bodhisattva Vajra Keeper
And the rest of them
Who were sitting in the visible presence of the Blessed One
Got up,
And they addressed him with these words:
Blessed One,
The field of practice for the Blessed Buddhas
That is known of by the Blessed Buddhas
Has no commonalities with any of the vehicles:
Please explain this topic
By which we will attain the level of omniscience
Just as soon as we correctly understand it.
They presented their request with these words.
He made a face that was very full of smiles,
Then he said these words:
Mahāsattva,
Listen!
To be correct,
The truth that is ultimate
And the truth that is relative:
These two are inseparable.
Our rewards do not come
By generating things for a cause.
Our rewards arise within our own fruition.
In the way of seeds for the world,
Seeds come from fruits.
They grow without turning into anything else.
In the same way,
The fields of practice for the Blessed Buddhas
Are to be correct
Practices of the perfection of the fruit within the fruit.
The proper truth is the fruit.
Fruits come from fruits.
In the same way,
We associate ourselves with a place,
While the outer and inner vessel and contents
Are completely pure.
Practicing works and doing jobs,
We are a company of bliss.
We abide in this astounding Bodhicitta.
This is the teaching on this purpose
That is an infinite wonder.
Then the Bodhisattva Vajra Keeper
And the rest of them
Again addressed him with these words:
Our natural view and samadhi
Are actually an astounding mandala of wisdom.
The Blessed One is primary among all things of the heart.
You are skilled in methods,
So I beg you to explain.
He addressed him with these words.
The Blessed One goggled his eyes in astonishment,
Then he gave instruction with these words:
It is clear that this astounding Bodhicitta
Is actually Vajrasattva.
We are looking at Vajrasattva himself.
The ten perfections are perfected in this.
We may use the stages of the ten levels
For our counting,
But we use the wisdom that is our awareness of equality
To join the levels into a circle of equality.
From the beginning
We do not visualize any embodiment of the Dharma.
This is why the samadhi that is like a vajra
Is the heart-essence of us all.
Dissimilar entities and non-entities
Are actually brambles.
The transmission of the non-conceptual samadhi
That turns things up in just an instant
Is in this way a mandala of equality.
The one who has the fleshly heart of all the Buddhas
Was a Buddha even before all the Buddhas!
Sentience is astounding!
It purifies our bodies, speech, and minds.
It is not something that everyone touches upon.
Even those who watch over the three realms
Do not touch upon it.
What need we say about the Auditors,
And other such?
It is also difficult for the Bodhisattvas
To be aware of this astonishment.
This is the best of topics,
For we have no base or root.
We do not exemplify anything.
So it is difficult even for the Buddha to understand this.
This peace is the true nature of us all.
This is the supreme pathway
Where we have nothing to contemplate
Or to take on.
This is a heart-essence
That did not arise and was not born.
Our sign is the sky,
Which is beyond any dedication.
Enlightenment has been enlightenment from the first,
But we do not realize it,
So we do not contemplate it.
The realms that are worlds,
Which are a thousand three thousands,
May be infinite, without limitation, and pervasive,
But they remain mandalas of astounding enlightenment.
The close pathway,
The unsurpassable path of blissful perfection:
At the moment we understand it
Our status may be magnificent
But we are still attaining to innumerable bodies of the Dharma,
Which are beyond any acceptance or rejection.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter One: The Basic Scene.
A PROFUNDITY THAT IS DIFFICULT
TO INVESTIGATE
The Blessed One,
A personification of great compassion
Who was skilled in methods
Entered the equanimity of the samadhi
That is called: “Profundity of Profundities,”
And he intentionally delivered this intentional proclamation:
It is difficult to find the arising of a manifest Buddha.
We cannot bear the rain
Of this correct and astounding understanding.
It is extremely difficult to find ease and opportunity.
In the same way,
The true mandala of our bodies, speech, and minds
Is brilliantly brought together
By this astonishing secret itself.
The characteristics of the Dharma
Have been completely pure from the beginning.
There is no self and there is no essence.
So this is difficult to understand.
Those who believe in the characteristics of their own ideas
And sentient beings who have generated the Bodhicitta:
These are extremely hard to find.
The astounding Bodhicitta had arisen long before
The nameless sentient beings,
Sentient beings who are Buddhas.
What is a sentient being who is a Buddha?
This is hard to understand.
The Dharma of enlightenment is astounding.
It is not an idea.
Nirvana and samsara do not exist
Right from the start.
Upon the stalks of the astounding Bodhicitta
There appear the five elements,
As if they were fruits.
When we use great compassion for sentient beings
It is hard to find any pure sentient being.
This is a reality in which
Sentient beings have no ground or root.
To be beyond birth and destruction
Is truly the Bodhicitta.
We are pure from the beginning.
There is absolutely no cause or result.
The total playfulness of our own bodies,
Which are perfected in themselves,
Is that we swirl in a giant circle
Of the three poisons and the five poisons.
Things like hatred have no names.
So things that are astounding
Are the best of Dharmas!
Pervasion and encompassment
Are hard to understand.
Things like sin,
Which are Dharmas that cut off our passages,
Have inconceivable particularities.
Likewise,
It is with our own astounding minds
That we kill the five poisons.
We kill samsara.
We kill everyone,
Including the Buddhas.
This is the greatest of sins,
But it is not possible that we be stained.
There are no sins to stain us.
We also kill sin.
Astounding enlightenment is a great sin.
This is the fleshly heart of all the Buddhas.
To understand for a mere instant
What it means that this is more noble
Than meritorious things done by the power of our faith
Is to be especially noble.
In this heart-essence of equality
In which we are not separated,
A totality of uncountable merit is perfected.
There is no I in I.
We play through the forms of everyone.
This astounding Bodhicitta is a pure substance.
From the beginning
No name of any Buddha who is a sentient being
Has been promulgated.
However it may be,
This is a great magic.
It is the great magic of our teacher.
The three realms,
The three realms of relative truth,
Are precious jewels.
This Dharma is difficult to investigate.
This is all the work of demons.
The five bodies are a mandala that is spontaneously perfected.
This body,
Which is a seed for everything that is subtle and profound,
Is an illusion.
Once it is destroyed
We look at what it is.
Our natural knowledge is an astounding enlightenment.
That is why we must seek out the astounding
When we investigate this body.
When we know the true nature of one thing
We know the true nature of them all.
The true nature of us all
Is that in our true natures we are one.
We are not individuals.
We are not separated.
This is astounding.
Astounding enlightenment
Is the body of the Tathagatas.
Amitabha’s body of the Dharma
Is the Bodhicitta.
He is the heart-essence
Of the five great ones.
His colors are perfect.
He plays in the eternity of all the Dharmas.
He came before the five great ones.
He is astounding!
We have been held
By the iron hooks of a pure conception
Of a heart-essence that is correct.
So it is appropriate that we hold onto it systematically.
The waves of this
Are that when we depend on it
We will find it.
This is difficult to investigate.
It is difficult to teach.
That is why I teach it this way.
From the beginning the path of freedom
Has been a great miracle.
It pacifies our exaggerations and depreciations.
It is the substance of the views of all the Buddhas.
It is the Great Light that perfects the filthless ten levels.
The wheel of samsara has spokes for spinning.
The base that is the origin of all things
Is like the sky.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Two: A Profundity that Is
Difficult to Investigate.
 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE ASTOUNDING
IS SUPREME BLISS
Then the Blessed One,
The All Good One,
Entered the equanimity of the samadhi of great bliss,
And he deliberately proclaimed this deliberate proclamation:
There is no praise or blame for this enlightenment
That is an unsurpassed peace.
It is beyond any conventionality
So it is not fitting that it be harmed by logic.
Because it has been at peace from the beginning
The way things are is not static.
The samadhi that is called: “Holding on and conceptualizing”
Is naturally present as a relative truth.
So we are primordially free from it.
We have left behind the dominions
That are not to be exemplified or discussed.
There is nothing without equality that is not equal.
So this is a river of bliss.
We are free from the diseases of work and employment.
So this is the embodiment of the Dharma.
We have no abode even here.
Our earth is spacious and is spontaneously perfected.
So it is that everything emerges into this,
This primordially attained fruition.
We are not dedicated to enlightenment.
We do not want to be enlightened.
We have been pure from the very beginning.
So we are beyond meditating on signs.
We do not fall out from the river
Of our views on being without work.
There is no door to enter it.
We have been planted in a great circle.
The river of our offerings
Is beyond any word of essence.
There is no one who must leave behind his own holiness.
This is the true essence of the three mandalas.
It is beyond our dedications.
This is in fact the root of the five elements.
There is nothing to exemplify.
The way of the seed
Is the cause for the arising of all the Buddhas.
The elements are themselves without any divisions.
They are in the way of the rainbows that emerge from the sky.
Living beings are indivisible.
In the way that the ocean brings together every tributary
We are one.
We are brought together into one circle.
We are beyond the disease of clinging to what is gone.
There is nothing to take up.
There is nothing to put down.
There is no nirvana or samsara.
The three realms are primordial Buddhahood.
There are no castes.
We are a unified sphere.
In true correctness
True correctness itself is perfect.
So it is actually stupid.
There is nothing that we must visualize
Or work on visualizing.
For that is the embodiment of foolishness.
The body of the circle of great bliss
Is that we are all Buddhas.
We kill all sentient beings
And roll them into a circle.
In the river of our luminescent Dharma bodies
We are all one.
So when we practice the five inexpiables
We are playing within the All-Good Mother.
There is no one other than the Buddha.
We are all Buddhas.
In the same way,
When we consume the practice we are visualizing
So that we may grow,
We are playing within our own Buddhahood.
Our enlightenment is actually astounding!
It is the stomach that eats the Buddhas!
The one caste,
The hundred castes,
The three bodies,
The five bodies,
And all the rest:
These arise by themselves.
In the way that the sun, moon, planets, and stars
Appear from out of the sky.
We use this heart of hearts,
This vajra heart,
To thread together the many things.
For these reasons,
This astounding thing
Is the transcendence of our own hearts.
In the river of our primordial purity
We have no divisions.
We all come together.
This is the ocean of the astounding Bodhicitta.
Samsara has no name.
We are beyond sorrow.
This astounding Bodhicitta
Is properly amazing.
We have nothing to do.
The way it is does not fail to be transcendent.
The astounding Bodhicitta leaves behind the levels
And goes to the other side.
We have no color or analogy.
We are beyond the words there are for the sky.
The astounding Bodhicitta
Has no true nature.
We have no outside or inside.
The astounding Bodhicitta,
Where we work and play at the same time,
Is a huge stomach that will hold everything.
We have no color or analogy.
We are beyond the words there are for the sky.
The astounding Bodhicitta
Naturally has no true nature.
In this way emptiness is beyond
The things that we do not visualize.
We are without both virtue and sin.
We have nothing to do.
This is our own sphere.
We are one,
While we are also numerous.
We are immeasurable.
This is the supreme bliss!
This astounding Bodhicitta is spontaneously perfected.
Everyone is reflected in the Bodhicitta,
Which has no analogy.
The killer of the three realms who leaves none
Is the highest royal prince.
In the astounding Bodhicitta we are all one.
So we use clouds of offerings
To offer ourselves
And we please the Victorious Ones.
To be correctly correct,
We do not divide the two truths.
It is astounding that through killing sentient beings
We play in the sky of the All Good.
This is a transcendence that goes beyond seeing and hearing.
We do not throw ourselves into anything else
And in this way we abide.
The astounding Bodhicitta is a body that unites us all.
In this way we are victorious over the rivers,
And sentient beings do not see us.
This is why there are no two obstructions
For us to resolve.
We do not need to study on any path.
It is astounding that without contriving the way things are
There is a river of great bliss.
To be correct is indeed correct,
But what we do not see is astounding.
This is in fact the reward of rewards.
We are beyond any rewards.
For these reasons this is called:
“The samadhi of great bliss.”
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Three: The True Nature of
the Astounding Is Supreme Bliss.
 EXEMPLIFICATION USING ANALOGIES
FOR THE TRANSMISSION
AND TEACHINGS
ON OUR VIEWS, PRACTICES, AND SAMADHIS
Then the Blessed One Vajrasattva,
The Great Vajradhara,
Shined his very wide eyes
On the All Good One.
Then he offered in profusion
His offering of great wisdom:
Please grant us instruction
On the meaning of the words:
“The Blessed One is a great expanse of enlightenment.”
What is your enlightenment?
Whence did you attain your enlightenment?
And where did you find your enlightenment?
Whence did you work to find certainty in the Dharma?
How will those who do not understand
Come to understand enlightenment?
Then he took to heart
The things that the great expanse had asked of him.
Then he entered the equanimity of the samadhi of great enlightenment.
Then he proclaimed these things,
For they must be proclaimed:
This is the true sign of the astounding Bodhicitta.
It is famous as a topic for which there are no writings.
This is why it has no true essence,
For it is beyond any enlightenment.
It is the supreme enlightenment
That is a spontaneously perfected purity.
It is beyond the words we write
About things that are not spoken.
The Victorious Ones do not exemplify it.
It is a river of mantras.
We do not fail.
We are beyond failure.
Our pathway is supreme.
Those who desire equanimity
Are difficult to liberate.
The astounding thing about thusness
Is that it is a big problem for our obstructors.
When we desire the enlightenment of equanimity
We leave behind our enlightenment.
We destroy our own heaps, generative forces, and realms
In our desire for enlightenment.
Proper enlightenment is far from this.
Our enlightenment has failed.
It is just as we leave behind our bodies, speech, and minds
That we leave behind enlightenment.
One who desires for enlightenment
By destroying such features as our heaps and causes
Is holding onto characteristics.
The peace that has no sign
Is our essence.
The wisdom of the body of the Dharma
Is beyond our signs for emptiness.
This is actually a transcendence that is transcendent.
It is the way of kings.
The heart of wisdom turns out to be the best.
It is a logical transmission.
In our indivisible holiness we are one.
We maintain every measure.
The way it is
Is that we are primordial Buddhas.
We have a knowledge
That is the practice of a noble knowledge.
We have no attachments for anything,
And in this way
The true nature of the astounding Bodhicitta
Is not to be discussed,
For it is beyond the things that we visualize.
There is no object that we may find with our thoughts.
When we meditate we are sick.
Primordial Buddhahood is the true nature of us all.
This is why the essence of our enlightenment
Is not to give up anything.
We are alone.
We have been spontaneously realized in this way,
And in this way our samadhi,
The dominion of the Dharma,
And all the rest
Are not anything at all.
We do not live together,
For we are perfect.
This astounding Bodhicitta
Is a body of total perfection,
Our knowledge is the practice of a noble knowledge,
Yet we are fearless
And are not moved by anyone else.
In this way the heart of relative truth
Is the astounding Bodhicitta.
We are not moved
Even by the analogies for the sky.
Even in samsara we are not afraid.
We blend the indivisible
Then stamp it with a primordial seal.
Our heroes make it so that
A fear of enemies does not exist.
Our fear of emotional problems
Is not our sentience.
In this way this astounding Bodhicitta
Is the very pure embodiment
Of the circle that brings us all together.
In this way,
If there is no primordial Buddha
Who has left his dominion behind
Then there is no Great Perfection,
For we are beyond the diseases of clinging and attachment.
The true nature of the Bodhicitta is clear light.
It is our heart of hearts,
A magnificent pathway of vision.
Being without any disease of seeking
It is inappropriate that we be destroyed by logic.
Direct perception and other such things
Are not destroyed by the logic of the world.
We are perfect and have gone to the other side.
So we see things as being completely perfect.
In this way,
This heart of effortless perfection
Is the true nature
That is the essence of us all,
And in this way
Dharmas have no names.
In the way that it is
We are perfect.
Without our mixing them or dividing them,
The ultimate truth and the relative truth,
Buddhas and sentient beings,
In their actual true natures
Are one.
A heart that exists
Actually arises from out of a heart that does not exist.
Our hearts do not have any real heart.
We do have hearts.
We have no attachments
To the doors of methodologies
And expertise in methodologies.
We resemble experts in the method
That is called: “The door beyond doors.”
We are all naturally perfect.
This is the true nature of our peace.
To have no door and have nowhere to enter:
This is the king of methodologies.
We are primordial Buddhas,
So we are beyond any pathways for traveling.
We are rolled into a circle,
So in true correctness we are one.
Without being brought together
We are gathered into the way that it is.
This is our supreme methodology.
Our thoughts are pure
So we are the best of those who have arisen into excellence.
When we push our thoughts through doors
This does not happen by itself.
In this way this great bliss,
Which is an astounding reality,
Is beyond our thoughts,
And leaves our thoughts behind.
The root of our samsara
Is the brilliant supremacy of our arrogance.
We are not people who carry the diseases
Of hassle and strife.
Correctly correct:
This is brilliantly correct.
The samadhi of joining
Is beyond any joining.
So it is brilliantly famed
As the king of samadhis.
We are perfected in the happiness
Of a road that is close.
We are beyond any road sickness.
We do not require any viewpoint
To enter into this.
We have already entered primordially.
We do not seek protection or samaya.
We are beyond emptiness.
This mandala is the heart of Vajrasattva.
It is a majesty that is non-dual,
Where there are no Buddhas.
According to those who work at
A consuming search for enlightenment,
The supreme perfection of this astounding Bodhicitta
Is such that we use our own true natures
To seek for our own true natures.
Although we may seek,
There is no time in which we find anything.
This is our true nature.
Our true natures
Do not fail to be our true natures.
This is the wind of our view, practice, samadhi,
And our contemplations.
To contemplate not contemplating them
Is a disease in our contemplations.
One who has no view
Stations his view on this.
To have no practice and to have no samadhi
Are just the same.
The Rishis do not find any meaning in their meditations.
Freedom from the disease of attachment to our meditations
Is the wind of our meditation.
We live without changing,
As if we were planting a chisel of iron.
This true nature of the astounding Bodhicitta
Is the supreme contemplation of the Victorious Ones,
The Rishis.
The perfect Buddhas of the three times
Do not have more than this.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Four: Exemplification Using
Analogies for the Transmission and Teachings on Our Views, Practices, and Samadhis.
 THE UNIQUE REALITY OF ALL THE DHARMAS THAT ARE
BEYOND ANALOGY
Then the great Vajradhara joined his palms
To the Blessed One,
The glorious All Good One,
His eyes shown with the radiance
Of a huge smile.
Blessed One,
How is it with birth and death here?
They are explained to be aspects of the Dharma.
How is it with what we are calling: “Dharma?”
I beg you to give instruction.
He had been addressed with these words.
Then the majestically spacious Blessed One
Gave instruction:
Birth and death are not different.
They are of a single core.
In the absence of any samsara
We absolutely do not leave our sorrows behind.
Nirvana and samsara are not separate.
In the same way,
These two: birth and death,
Have separate names,
But it appears that these names are attributed separately
From out of a single true nature.
In the same way,
Our hearts penetrate doors
Without opening them.
Our ideas about the vehicles
When numbered are different,
But we do not fall out of the way that it is.
This is actually our true nature.
Birth, death, and even nirvana
In their true essence are one.
So they are actually samsara.
We do not reject them.
We do not move.
We do not sit in waiting.
To abide where we have nothing to abide on
Is abiding without abiding.
As for the unparalleled heart of Vajrasattva,
Everything has been primordially stamped with a seal,
So the three realms are whole.
We are beyond the limitations of words.
We do not see anything at all.
That which we call “birth”
Is the basis for the arising of dharmas.
Nirvana is endowed with samsara,
So it does not exist.
We do not reject them.
We have no abode.
We also leave behind those who would remain.
We are made noble by the king of wisdom,
Who is beyond any of our practices.
We do not separate the ultimate truth
From the relative truth.
There is no ultimate truth.
Those who desire some ultimate truth
Do not find any purpose that is holy.
They abide purposefully in the absence
Of any ultimate truth.
We praise and blame.
Our vajras are the best
Of the things that are hard.
We do not move.
We do not change.
We live in the way of the fools.
The king who lives in this is a Tathagata.
The vision of his mother and sisters
Is likewise his dominion.
Equanimity is spontaneously present
In our dominion,
And in the play of our dominion.
So joining with our mothers and sisters
Is the best playfulness.
We do not look at virtue or sin.
We are primordially open,
So by practicing evil
Our mandala is maintained as a mandala.
The Buddha has expounded on Dharmas of four kinds.
Conceptions that have no ceiling are not true.
Our feelings are lost.
Our manifestations will speak on the six perfections.
They will explain them in words.
So we will not find the meaning,
Which is astounding.
The best of letters are actually perfectly clear.
When we determine things using letters
That are in four lines
We lose our astonishment.
Understanding things using the explanations of teachers
Is a pathway of delusion.
If it is so
That when we have no illness
We also need no medicine,
Then it is so that
We need medicines for the sake of diseases.
Just so,
When we have no other vehicle
This one is unsurpassed.
We do not even need to teach it.
So if we abide in our base like this
Our unsurpassable vehicle
Will also be an unsurpassable purity,
But even the All Good One,
The King of Spaciousness,
Does not speak on it.
There is not even an atom here
To be discussed through speaking.
One for whom the meaning of this is evident
Is a king of kings.
Then Vajradhara did indeed cut through his doubts,
And again he planted his word of solicitation:
When we do not see this astounding Bodhicitta,
Every dharma abides on the pathway of the Dharma.
As with the pathways of the childish
It is difficult to realize any reward.
When we are born into the family of the Victorious Ones
We see what is actually astounding.
Then the Blessed One,
The All Good One,
Proclaimed something he had made himself to proclaim:
Our astounding true selves
Are a Dharma for sentient beings who will come later on.
As for the true sentience
Of the Buddhas of the three times,
It is the true nature of the astounding Bodhicitta.
We are like the empty sky.
We have nothing to depend on.
We abide on a sentience
That does not even have a name.
This is why the Buddha is famous for being a “Buddha.”
Austerities are difficult.
We torture our bodies.
We prostrate and we read.
Through explaining things or holding onto them
There is no knowledge or discovery.
To find the astounding Bodhicitta
We understand that in our unmistaken clarity
There is the true nature of our sentience.
Austerities and such things
Are obstructions to our great enlightenment.
As for our true essence,
It is the way of the Tathagatas.
As things are,
We do not need anything at all
To do our work.
This kind of absence of anything to do
Is framed as being an “attainment,”
But the astounding Bodhicitta
Was not generated by it.
This astonishment goes beyond
Even those who have gone into bliss.
The Victorious Ones do not see it.
It is the space of a great charnel ground.
There is a great astonishment
When we perfect our wisdom and samadhi.
This has not been revealed by anyone else.
It is the embodiment of the way things are.
Primordial Buddhahood
Precedes the absence of all things.
It is the great ancestor
Of the Buddhas of the three times.
Once we envision this
The essence of real things is pure in our meditation.
When we are generated into being mudras
Our true natures are primordially peaceful.
Servitude does not have any pure virtue
That is to be praised.
The pure essence that we do not visualize
Fulfills us all.
The seal of the sky is pure.
So both equality and inequality
Are embodiments of our own bodies:
This is the embodiment of all the Buddhas.
There is also that knowledge
In which we have a subtle clinging.
It resembles our inability to appear
Where there are great obstructions.
We meditate that our ideas about
Taking things in and holding onto them
Are the bodies of our mudra.
In essence,
Everyone is an astounding Buddha,
But we will not see any coming together
Of everyone’s embodiment of the Dharma.
Actually,
Meditating that the apparent world is a god
Is an astounding problem.
The outer and inner vessel and contents
Mature into form as fruits
That come from the seeds of the astounding Bodhicitta.
The ripening of a seed into a fruit
Is also a way to be one,
For we are pure in the place that we return to.
It is from the great ocean
That all the tributary waters emerge.
When they are recondensed
It will seem that they all have the one taste of salty water.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Five: The Unique Reality of
All the Dharmas that Are Beyond Analogy.
THE SECRET OF A SMILING FACE
Then the Blessed One,
The glorious All Good One,
Saw that he was astounding.
Then he proclaimed what he was meant to proclaim:
E Ma Ho!
Even the great Bodhisattvas
Do not see the one Dharma.
The pathway of their Dharma
Has no exhaustion or finish.
The bodies of perfect pleasure and of manifestation
As well as the embodiments that have actually appeared
Are a single Dharma.
We do not see.
We have no vision.
We hold onto our ornaments.
He who is ornamented by marks and exemplary features
Is not a proper Buddha.
This body that is marked
Is actually a meaningful reward,
But the one who desires it
Is a long way from proper Buddhahood.
Also,
It is pure and astounding enlightenment
That is Buddhahood.
It has no color or shape.
It is beyond exemplification.
The root that has no base
Is the best of all bases.
The root of a leaf
Is also the leaf of a root.
Like the sky we do not want,
This is indeed our true transcendence.
This is the one Dharma of the astounding Bodhicitta.
None but those who are embodiments
Of this very pure Dharma
Will touch on or experience this.
This is why the Buddha
Along with his children
Are ornamented with the marks and exemplary features
That are signs.
Whoever rests in a thusness
That is the duality of direct perception
Does not abide by this astounding thing.
His disease is a clinging attachment.
Appearances and emptiness are essentially remote,
And this is a problem for them.
There is nothing that we are discussing
When we say: “The victorious over the Victorious Ones.”
Words for both our dominion and our wisdom are exhausted.
We do not abide by any extreme or middle.
This is a river of happiness.
Pervasive and encompassing enlightenment
Is not to be measured as if it had a limit.
To believe that this is actually in a body
Is to spin the wheel of praise and blame.
In this we have a combined exemplification
Of both our ideas and our planetary references.
Those who believe there was a beginning
Are the delusional people of the world.
Their three bodies are very far from
Their bodies, speech, and minds.
This is actually a shady tree,
For this astounding thing
Turns out to be the heart-essence of the Dharma.
It is a Dharma of rewards.
Our vessel and its contents:
The three realms have been primordially stamped
With the seal of enlightenment.
The origins and applications of our mudras
Themselves melt into our stomachs.
We cut through the deeds and works of our bodies
At the root,
And we give them up.
We escape samsara’s pit.
We take in a gulp of Buddhahood.
We do not discriminate virtue from evil.
We are completely pure.
There is no self or I.
This is a body of great peace.
This is an expansive charnel ground
For all of our families,
And for our wisdom.
The three realms are actually perfected
In the body of the three existences.
Our merit is spontaneously perfected.
Its essence is completely pure.
One who abides within the body
Of this excellent family
May practice evil
As a supreme and ultimate truth.
He is pure within a body
In which he actually kills sentient beings.
His mandala is clean,
And he is the identity of our mudra.
He is also the purity of our awareness mantras,
Secret mantras,
And spells.
Those who have not been imparted empowerment
Turn out to be the Victorious Ones.
The gods, nagas, and mighty forces
Will also protect them.
They are bent into the bodies
Of powerless and bent people.
This is also a realization
Of a reward for our meditation and samadhi.
He is also the true owner of every mandala.
Our secret mothers are all
Totally entwined in this.
It turns out to be the essence
Of all the Tathagatas.
This is the mandala that shows us
That the three bodies are vajras.
This is the body into which
The male and female All Good Ones
Are entwined.
Someone who is naturally with this
Is a perfect Buddha.
We call this “astounding”
In our discussion of it.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Six: The Secret of a Smiling
Face.
THE TRUE NATURE OF OUR SENTIENCE
THAT IS ULTIMATELY TRUE,
THE TREASURY OF THE SUTRA LITERATURE, THE TREASURY
OF THE MAHAYANA,
THE PRACTICE OF OUR VIEWS,
CUTTING OFF GROUNDS FOR DEVIATION,
AND SHOWING OUR OWN TRUE NATURES
Then again the Blessed One,
The glorious Vajrasattva,
Inquired into a topic of majestic inquiry.
To do this,
He held his palms to his face
And radiated with gaping eyes:
Blessed One,
What is the sentience
That is ultimately true?
Please give us instruction
Into that which is called: “The way that it is,”
And any particularities there may be.
He took what this means to heart,
Then the magnificent Blessed One gave instruction:
As for the Bodhicitta,
The minds of all sentient beings
Neither rise out from nor move through sleep.
We are truly holy.
Meanings and minds do not have names or signs.
Names and signs for names:
We have no names.
This is proper wisdom.
It is called: “The way it is.”
Meanings and sentient beings
Have no dividing differences.
They are one.
Then the magnificent Blessed One himself
Spoke out on this topic,
For it must be discussed:
The great treasury that is the wisdom of the Tathagatas
Is beyond any signs that are untrue
Or any words or explanations.
In the Mahayana,
Which we conceptualize to be a naturally great vehicle,
We actually enter onto the pathway of the Dharma.
The path of the Dharma
Does not cling to holiness.
We practice yoga.
We do not even desire enlightenment.
This is the best of viewpoints.
We do not see any Buddhas or sentient beings.
There are traces of our happiness.
Our stomach for purity is primordially protected.
Our practice does not take anything up
Or put anything down.
We do not join or separate.
There is no objective to our viewpoint.
Our emptiness is holy.
We also do not see the way that it is.
This is the best meditation.
The astounding is being spoken
As the true essence of the Great Perfection.
The king of wisdom is like the sky.
It is beyond any limitations.
The Rishis that cling to this
Call it: “Meditation.”
When we engage in the topics of our visualizations
Our needs are deviant.
When we are committed to planetary referents
That we visualize,
We fall out of order.
The view that emptiness is the way that it is
Is a stupid viewpoint.
It is just as soon as we desire
A pathway for the remnants of our happiness
That it is far away.
On account of both protection and non-protection
Our samaya fail.
By clinging to practice and non-practice
Our path to freedom is cut off.
By seeing things that we have looked at
Or have not looked at
We decimate what is holy.
There is no end to our understandings
Of both meditation and non-meditation.
From out of this astonishment
These things become our generalities.
The great treasury of the astounding
Has fallen away from its true essence.
As for the true nature of the astounding Bodhicitta,
We do not hold to any path of the Dharma.
We are beyond the extremes of existence and non-existence.
To leave things behind is in itself true wisdom.
From the primordial we have left behind
Everything from the past and from the future.
The teachings of our teachers
Have not discovered any meaning for this.
Things that we hear with our ears from others
Are pure.
When we discuss things with the organ of our tongue
We are beyond conventionalities.
What has been spoken on by our teachers
Is a delusional pathway of the Dharma.
No matter how they explain things
They do not find the meaning of the astounding.
The moon arises in the sky
On the first day.
We point to it with our finger.
So we hold to what is simply a way of seeing.
We practice the objectives of the great Rishis.
When we describe this in words
We fall from its true essence.
By the thoughts within our minds
We also move toward the extreme of nihilism.
It is out of a heart of nothingness
That there comes a heart that exists.
Like this!
Like this!
Like this!
We settle into our organic state.
The astounding Bodhicitta
Is the true nature of our bodies.
The Buddhas dwell forever
On the meaning of this view.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Seven: The True Nature of
Our Sentience that Is Ultimately True, The Treasury of the Sutra Literature, The Treasury of
the Mahayana, The Practice of Our Views, Cutting off Grounds for Deviation, and Showing
Our Own True Natures.
OUR PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY PURE SINCE THE
BEGINNING
Then the Blessed One,
The glorious All Good One,
Took action to discuss things
Using an objective that is not stained by any problems:
When we settle with equanimity
Into the astounding Bodhicitta
It is necessary that we be Buddhas
In our bodies and our minds.
We do not investigate external objectives.
This is actually our Buddhahood.
We are not ornamented by marks
Or exemplary features.
This is the way of the sky.
This is not a field of practice of any kind
For those whose senses are in the past.
The consciousness of a sense organ
Sees something,
And in that way
The consciousnesses of our senses
Are threefold.
We are not separate from our own objectives.
We settle into the wholeness of this way.
These three do not fall into any vacancy
In our objectives.
Our true nature is that
We are not anything at all,
And to that extent
We do not separate
Our bodies from our minds.
We settle into the true nature
Of that space.
It is truly astounding
To abide in this kind of space.
It will never happen
That the two extremes are stained by any problems.
When the Victorious Ones of the past and the future
Abide in the bodies of sentient beings,
When it is their time for death
They will have these habitual patterns
And by force of this
The hearts of sentient beings will be victorious.
When we are endowed with this astounding Bodhicitta
And a self
We will not be seen among the Auditors of the six families.
Among the Auditors of the six families
No one is a killer.
Sentient beings who are seen among the Auditors
Are said to be stained with problems
And that they also have sin.
As an analogy,
When we kill a man in a dream
We are not afraid of any sin
At the moment we are the killers.
Just so,
When we understand the meaning
Of the astounding Bodhicitta
It is at that moment that we come to possess its meaning
Within our selves.
It is like killing in a dream.
We will not be stained by any sin.
When we possess the force
Of the astounding Bodhicitta
We do not see our mothers,
Sisters,
Daughters,
Or anyone else
As being anything other than truly astounding.
This kind of union
Is a union that is actually holy.
Seeing mothers and sisters as women
Is a cause for our ensnarement.
As an analogy,
When we join with our mothers and sisters in our dreams
At the moment we wake up
We do not fear their criticism.
To understand what things mean correctly
Is like waking up from a dream.
It is not possible that our objective
Will be stained by having any problems.
When we keep to the meaning
Of the astounding Bodhicitta
We will not look for any mandalas
That keep to the four mudras.
We look to the mandala of the mandala mudra.
In this,
We keep to our mudra’s mandala.
That is why the equal to this Astounding
Has never been spoken.
As an analogy,
We see the body of the Tathagata in a dream.
When we wake up
We are evident to ourselves,
And there is no one else.
In the same way,
Through the mandala of mudra meditation
We will not find the depths of our enlightenment,
But only names.
We are not mandalas.
In our astounding enlightenment
Our mandalas will not be stained
By any problems there may be in having a name.
He who possesses this astounding Bodhicitta
Does not practice toward any roots of virtue,
And will not be seen as a root of virtue.
When we are seen as a root of this
We will turn out to have problems.
Not looking for roots of virtue
Is actually supreme enlightenment.
In a dream we look to be friends with our enemies,
While during times when we are awake
We will not be friends with them.
Through roots of virtue we attain
Praise and repute in this world.
When we are not seized by the astounding Bodhicitta
It is like a dream in which our sorrows result
In a basis for grief.
We have no compassion or love for sentient beings.
We practice the five inexpiables.
We practice the twenty-five kinds of uncleanliness.
We play with the five kinds of good things that we desire.
We do not accept the five that are from others.
We offer ourselves forever.
We do not class ourselves among the strangers.
Astounding enlightenment is the samaya of the Mahayana.
We may work to cut through
The river of samsara’s sorrow,
But it has been correctly proclaimed
That this is an astounding enlightenment.
My desire and attachment
Are also an astounding enlightenment,
That is I.
I am an astounding hatred
Toward the hatred of others.
In the same way,
I am an astounding enlightenment
As the stupidity of samsara.
I am an astounding pride
For I exist while others do not.
I am a jealousy toward others
When someone else’s vehicle is beautiful.
I am the ultimate truth and the relative truth
Described with these words.
Our thoughts do not race,
So while we may diversify endless time,
We do not go anywhere
Except for our astounding bodies.
The jewel of all the Buddhas
Is a stainless heart.
We abide in the heart
Of Vajrasattva himself.
We will not be burned
Even by the fires of a hundred-thousand eons.
We will not be washed away
Even by the waters of the three existences.
Those who have gone to bliss
Did not have anything to teach
By saying: “This.”
The Buddha was there
Before existence had arisen.
Everything is actually the astounding Bodhicitta,
While our problems and exaggerations
Have been entirely pure since the beginning.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Eight: Our Problems Have
Been Completely Pure Since the Beginning.
 REALIZATION THAT HAS NO NAME
AND THE SPECIAL NOBILITY
OF THE MAHAYANA
Then the Mahāsattva Vajrayana,
And all the rest of them proclaimed:
The Blessed One has clearly settled
His own name within the great expanse.
Please grant us instruction on a method
That is entirely liberated from names.
That is what they asked.
He cared about this topic,
So he spoke:
The heart of the mandala of proper happiness
Is a meditation that is ornamented by those with names
And analogies for names.
The Tathagata said this when he actually saw it.
Bodhisattvas of mean intellect
Who desire to see a body that is actually astounding
Are easily corrupted.
We are beyond the words there are
For names and for the nameless.
There is nothing to talk about,
Nothing that I must tell you.
You must meditate on a reality
That is both brilliant and secret.
This Bodhicitta is actually
The most secret of the secrets.
The precious jewel of a pure and self-arising mandala
Is actually the origin and engagement of our manifestations.
In the way of the atoms there is commotion.
There is a mudra of great vastness that is the best
Of the self-originating.
It is easy to train in this
For the childish with their mean intellects.
Their reward is that from out of
The words for the meditations of the Secret Mantra
There is this Astounding
Which is a teaching on primordial Buddhahood.
It is unborn.
It is the great ancestor of all the Buddhas.
Like the fire of an eon,
We live alone.
The Dharmas,
The totality of all the Dharmas,
With none excepted
Are lies.
When we understand that everything is a lie
We are free from fear.
By their very nature
All dharmas are empty.
If we abandon the dharmas,
Which are empty by their very essence,
It is possible that we will be born into a high status
Due to our generosity and all the rest,
But our reward of final exhaustion
Will actually be destroyed.
We are not attached to,
And we do not abide by,
Realities that are empty by their very essence.
This is actually nirvana.
As for the true nature of the astounding Bodhicitta,
We transcend our own essences.
Our pathway is perfect and is entirely pure.
We do not desire Buddhahood.
We are beyond the level of Buddhahood.
For those who enjoy the work of complicating Buddhahood
There are three mudras.
The true nature of all dharmas
Is that they are non-dual.
It is by the Dharma that we are reduced
Into a single true nature,
But a true nature in which we are actually alone
Does not exist.
It is by our own true natures
That we do not abide on levels
And we have no attachments.
The dharmas that have names
Are the pathways and the rewards of the world.
They will be exhausted.
For this reason they will not attain
Any rewards that are unsurpassed.
This Astounding
Is actually at one with the true nature of the Dharma,
Yet it leaves behind the dominion of non-desire.
We do not desire the Buddha’s mudra.
We are primordially stamped with the seal.
From the beginning the three realms have been at peace.
In the Dharma body of the Buddha
Nirvana transcends transcendence itself.
The heaps of our virtues
Are a body that is a vajra.
We maintain a diligence
Which does not gather or part with anything at all.
Our body of true essence
Leaves behind true natures that have no outflows.
We have the mandala
Of an infinitely blazing fire-light.
We are souls that shine
Like the brightness of a hundred-thousand suns.
A person who enters into the path of the Dharma
Will work to prioritize the training of his body and mind.
He will not seek for any Buddha that is outside of himself.
He will not find any.
It is actually the sentient beings
Who are said to be All Good Ones.
We must look to the what is there
On the inside of the inside.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Nine: Realization that Has No
Name and the Special Nobility of the Mahayana.
HOLINESS
IN THAT THIS TANTRA WAS EXPLAINED
BY THE LORD OF THE TANTRAS
Then the Blessed One,
The glorious All Good One,
Made himself speak personally.
The All Good One
Is our body of great bliss.
In the majestic mandala of his body, speech, and mind
He brilliantly turns the wheel
Of the Dharma of samsara.
Without joining in our Bodhicitta
There does not exist even an atom
That would turn the wheel of samsara.
When we do not properly understand
Primordial Buddhahood
We have no name for hell.
We also have no ignorance.
We pour all those who have gone to bliss
Throughout the three times,
The world with its six classes of beings,
The five elements,
And everything else
Into the ark that is our great awareness of the Bodhicitta.
We harbor no narrow hesitations.
We are in the way of droplets that fill a jar.
E Ma Re!
The Dharma that I teach is beautiful.
There is no other Dharma
Or any Dharma
With the exception of the one Dharma of the Bodhicitta.
It is very amazing.
The true nature of our sentience
Has no abode
And has no country.
Our attachment to the Buddhas of the three times
Is very amazing.
We will not find the All Good anywhere
Other than the self-aware Bodhicitta.
We are not aware of how we have cut off our pasts.
We do not see.
It is very amazing.
The two truths of cause and result
Never did exist.
We enjoy the relative truth
As if it was a seductive dream.
Nothing but the ultimate truth
Is very amazing.
Creating bondage,
The cause of hell,
The five poisons,
And our understanding of others:
It is within the great enlightenment
Of great enlightenments
That the five poisons will grow.
However we may discriminate
Our sorrows, our sin, and our non-virtues,
Our unsurpassed liberator is actually the Buddha.
There are no problems that stain us.
We are like lotuses.
It is amazing.
We may practice a variety of non-virtues
Which are the causes of hell.
We may eat food that is not clean.
We may use excrement for everything,
But the results for any cause do not mature
Except for the true spirit
Of the playfulness of the All Good One.
It is most amazing.
There are those who have anxiety
About living in an endless hell,
But there is no place for any hell
Outside of the sky-space
Of the All Good Mother’s bhaga.
There is no abode of hell.
This is the path of enlightenment.
We maintain our happiness
And live in happiness.
It is most amazing.
Even a hundred-thousand malevolent spirits,
Demons and the rest
Will not seize, overcome, or annex
The true nature of the unsurpassed Bodhicitta.
Those who did not come together
Are naturally brought together.
It is most amazing.
E Ma!
This is a magnificent Dharma
That is brilliantly secret.
Nothing whatsoever was proclaimed by the Tathagata!
Our circle is not the same
As the circle that surrounds us.
We have nothing in common with anyone else.
This is most astounding.
A rosary for mantras
Is in the way of the lineage of the lamb.[1]
If we settle down for the sake of
Generation, expansion, gathering,
Summoning into union,
Offerings,
And the things we desire and strive for,
The king of vehicles goes beyond
Our freedom from hopes, prayers, abilities,
Determinations, and quests.
Its cause and result are primordially pure.
In this way,
We abide in an equality
With this way,
So our rituals turn out to be linked.
It is most amazing.
Our names and forms are settled into equanimity.
This is the word of our primordial mantra.
The Bodhicitta does not stop,
And it is beyond having any birth,
Our wisdom is a virtue.
It is actually a mandala of spaciousness.
This is not a desire of any kind
For some enlightened cause or reward.
As for the Great Spirit of astounding enlightenment,
It is the true heart of all those who travel
Throughout the three times.
It is the sentience of sentient beings.
It has not been born from the beginning.
It lacks the problems there are with causes and rewards.
It is naturally very pure,
So it also has no filth.
Upon a great throne,
The great throne of Vajrasattva
We grow like the sky,
Which has no name and does not change.
Vajrasattva himself
Happens to be a play by me.
All of the true names for the Dharma
Are completely pure.
The mandala of our hearts
Is the best mandala of our hearts.
Our body of bodies
Is a body that works playfully
In all things.
Gemstones, wishing trees, and jewel lamps
Are actually seeds that bring forth
Many kinds of pleasures.
Like masters of magic illusion
We make everything happen magically.
Each and every thing is born
From out of the unborn,
And also when we are born
There is also nothing that ends.
To eternally play at everything
While creating everything
Is the great art of magic.
In the body of the true spirit of the All Good
It is most amazing.
E Ma’o!
This very beautiful supreme vehicle is special.
We have nothing to do.
It is beyond works.
It is beyond the dharmas that we work on or create.
Our way of abiding
Is also an experience of the Great Perfection.
The mandala that seems to change
Is harmonious with our bodies.
The mandala of five bodies
Shines from out of our peace,
Which is actually our insubstantial essence.
This is most amazing.
That wisdom blazes as light from the primordial
From out of a true nature that is entirely pure:
This is most amazing.
We are all brought together,
Leaving none out,
When everything burns,
As it does with the fire of our eon.
This is most amazing.
Everyone with no exceptions
Will be subdued
When we cut through them all,
As if we were swords.
This is most amazing.
There is nothing that turns,
As if samsara were a wheel.
Everyone with no exceptions is churning.
This is most amazing.
Everyone with no exceptions
Experiences being the All Good.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Ten: Holiness in that This
Tantra Was Explained by the Lord of the Tantras.
PRAISE FOR THE LORD OF THE TANTRA,
PRAISE FOR THE TANTRA,
THE LORD BEQUEATHS THE TANTRA,
AND CONCLUDING THE INSTRUCTIONS
Then the Blessed One,
The glorious Vajrasattva,
And everyone else
Joined their palms in praise:
You work to destroy
Everything that we must learn.
Your unmoving body of great bliss
Retains the excellence of a protector.
You are a hero who is a teacher
Of majestic and amazing methodologies.
I join my palms
As if I were bowing forever,
Through the three times.
You perfect the five great ones.
In your Buddha heart
You work to bring together all the Buddhas,
With none excepted.
We do not abandon our views.
We gaze at your body to be satisfied.
We hold the practices
That we do not join or part from
To be higher.
In this I also join my palms
So as to praise your bodies.
For you are all the Buddhas that I respect.
I also join my palms
As if forever
To those sentient beings
Who revere this Bodhisattva.
I join my palms and bow again and again
To that king of lions
Who totally liberates the three realms,
Who is a teacher of miracles that are amazing and astounding.
I join my palms and bow
Again and again
To the great pervader who is like the sky
And has no analogy,
A body that arises like the sky
From out of the body of our needs.
We do not give up on the kings of liberation,
Be it total liberation,
Primordial liberation,
Or the liberation of all samsara.
I will work to bring them together.
Having neither radiance nor corruption
And with nothing to take up or reject,
I am alone.
This is a Dharma that does not separate causes from results.
It is very pure.
This is a Dharma of total liberation
That does not agree with the pathways
That are found in biographical accounts.
This is a Dharma whose holy reward
Is the profundity of the deeps.
Holding this,
Reading it,
Respecting it,
Thinking about it:
Our faith is not frivolous.
We gather into our natural state.
We gather,
And so I work to join my palms.
Thus did he praise the Tantra and the Lord of the Tantra.
The Lord of the Tantra
Actually looked at Vajrasattva.
He spread open his eyes.
His face glowed.
Vajrasattva,
No one is greater than you!
The enlightenment that is so difficult to find
Is actually your own body.
This is a Dharma in which we live naturally
And without dualities.
It is hard for the Buddhas of the three times to understand this.
There does not exist any Buddhahood other than this
Anywhere else.
There has never been any great purpose
To our fatigue and our strife.
Living naturally without moving
Is actually a great medicine,
For it must be
That all the Buddhas and sentient beings
With none excepted
Are purely liberated just by seeing this.
This is why I have bequeathed this astounding Bodhicitta.
It is bequeathed!
This is my heart of hearts.
Rays of light actually move through the wheel
Of the sun of wisdom.
They melt into the center of our hearts.
They turn the wheel.
Its heart-essence has no end.
This is a very pure Tantra.
It came from the tip of my tongue.
We must hide our blazing lanterns
In an ark of pure wisdom.
From the Tantra on the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Eleven: Praise for the Lord of
the Tantra, Praise for the Tantra, the Lord Bequeaths the Tantra, and Concluding the
Instructions.
The King of Tantras on the Astounding Nature of All Dharmas is complete.
There are three Astounding Bodhicittas:
The later, the tama, and the original.
Among these,
One was left by two children
In the temple of the Profound Book.
When master Buddhagupta went out for oil
He saw it once.
There was a malefactor that he punched once
With his iron palms
On the shores of Mouth Force,
Who then fainted.
When he awoke from his faint
He was living as if he was in the way of
The demon-like beings.
I carry your fire,
O Fire Light,
King of my home,
In which it turns out you have fainted,
But if I carry you
I must kill you.
So did he speak.
He was alarmed.
So he panicked.
He summoned his mother
Into the above
For someone else.
The two children were left there.
For anyone who comments on this
There will arise a clear measure of the things they need.
For this purpose
After the triad of mother and children
Had been summoned,
They were put into order.
In the future they will tolerate their jobs
By moving within the rays of their intellects.
Female malefactors
Will make obstacles
That contradict and separate
The hearts of the noble.
So we must move through the rays of our intellects.
Those who are skilled at praising work
Requested the ambrosia of
The Black Tongue of Praiseworthy Experience.
 THE ASTOUNDING BODHICITTA
OF GREAT BLISS
In the Indian language:
Mahāsukha | Bodhicitta Sopaśika
In the Tibetan language:
bDe ba chen po byang chub kyi sems rmad du byung ba’i le’u
In the English language:
The Chapter on the Astounding Bodhicitta of Great Bliss
 THE BASIC SCENE FOR THE DHARMA
I bow to the Blessed One,
The glory of glories,
Vajrasattva!
The Astounding Bodhicitta is here.
This is the teaching
On a purpose of infinite virtue.
The Buddhas who dwell in the three times,
The yogins who are Vajradharas,
The great and glorious blood drinkers,
The communities of witches,
As well as many kinds of gods,
Asuras,
Wind-gods,
The Lords of the Dead,
Nagas and deities,
The communities of malefactors,
Demons,
And elementals:
The gatherings of powerless believers
Were in an infinite palace that was filled
With gatherings of gods.
It was beautiful.
Regarding these things,
The light was clear
As if it was a fire.
There was a throne and light from the sun and moon.
Our fields were shining with giant thrones.
Items made from jewels were very much evident.
There were Buddhas who were endowed with good fortune.
The workers of harm with their brilliant hatreds
Were also thrown out.
Who would work to harm this?
The elementals,
The monsters,
The demons,
The hungry ghosts,
The creatures:
These may not hear this Astounding.
This wondrous and astounding enlightenment
Is explained by the guardians of the world.
As for anyone who works to contradict this,
All fear will come to him.
His head will crack into seven pieces.
He will be rejected by those who hold the mantras.
This Astounding Bodhicitta
Is the supreme and secret heart
For the propitiation of the majestically glorious
Padma Heruka.
We are not afraid to talk about the Dharma.
We will not be stained by any karma.
This was proclaimed for the sake of
The many communities that form the entourage
Of our Great Glory,
The Buddhas who are great yogins,
The yoginis who form
The wisdom of the communities in the entourage,
The fearless Vajrasattvas,
And for the fortunate.
It was not spoken for anyone else.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter One: The Basic Scene for the Dharma.
THE ASTOUNDING BODHICITTA
THAT IS AN ASTOUNDING DHARMA
Then the Blessed One,
An embodiment who dwelt in the heart of enlightenment,
In the abode of Akani ṣṭ ha,
Looked upon Vajrasattva.
Then he entered the equanimity of the samadhi that is called:
“The astounding Bodhicitta that is an astounding Dharma.”
At that time,
Those who move through bliss of the three times
And all of these infinite and endless realms of the world,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
And everyone who moves through bliss
Were of a single purpose.
Our true selves had arisen from out of this astounding Bodhicitta,
And all of us were born from this.
Vajrasattva must be aware
That the mandalas that come from him
Are astounding mandalas.
This is a topic to be taken to heart.
So he looked at Vajrasattva.
He opened the door to the mandala of his thinking,
And the meaning of self-awareness
Clearly emerged.
He worked to clarify
Just how it is with the meaning of everything,
Illuminating things individually.
Then he worked to make it evident
To Vajrasattva himself,
And all of those who move through bliss,
Through the infinite and endless realms of the worlds
That are a great thousand of three thousands,
That this is indeed the Astounding Bodhicitta.
The mandalas that are generated out of the astounding Bodhicitta:
The mandalas of our astounding bodies
Are an astounding secret.
Our astounding speech is the astounding secret
Of the mandalas of our speech.
Our astounding minds
Are the astounding secrets of the mandalas of our minds,
And this is actually a great Dharma.
It is astounding.
Then the Blessed One gathered all of these things
Into his own body, speech, and mind.
Then Vajrasattva addressed him with these words:
The perfect Buddha
Is wise in the world,
Working for the sake of the Buddhas,
I teach on the topic of a lantern for our hearts.
One whose intellect is devoured by doubts,
And whose mind and thoughts contradict each other:
Every fear will come to him.
His head will split into seven pieces.
Vajrasattva himself will also be angry.
He will be rejected by those
Who are the keepers of the mantras.
All of our mantras have the astounding intent
Of our secret view.
I myself am Vajrasattva.
In the past there were those who did not understand.
They taught the intent of being a lamp for our hearts.
There are those that work with respect toward the Buddha.
I bow to their objective.
There are those who contemplate love for all the Buddhas,
And who employ themselves in their purpose.
I bow to those who are purposefully employed.
There are those who are employed in this purpose.
May they come to realize me.
Like the blazing of an infinite fire-light,
When I become aware of what this means
My fortune will be equal to all the Buddhas.
May all the Buddhas prosper.
I am seeking an explanation
For the objective that arises for fortunate ones,
Those who are the yogins of the three times.
Once they have understood the meaning of astounding enlightenment,
I Vajradhara will myself
Become a Buddha on the vajra throne,
This astounding Bodhicitta
Is not something that everyone is aware of.
None of the gods are aware of it.
Even the Bodhisattvas have difficulty
In being aware of this.
Those who have gone into bliss
Were not aware of this in the past.
Thus did he address him.
Mahāsattva,
Omniscience is the best meditation.
Our true essence is not to be visualized.
Anyone who unites with my body
Has no enlightenment
And also has no meditation.
The characteristic of our bodies, speech, and minds
Is the Bodhicitta with its five wisdoms.
The magnificent sentience of all sentient beings
Is naturally pure and is filthless.
Nothing is generated.
We have no outflows.
There is no enlightenment.
There is no real understanding.
There are no realms.
There are no elements.
Our characteristics do not change.
We are like the sky.
There are no dualities.
There is nothing to hold onto as being dual.
This Bodhicitta is an eye that is open.
Thus did he give instruction.
O Mahāsattva,
The bodies, speech, and minds
Of all those who have gone to bliss
And the realms of the world,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Are similar
In that they are infinite and endless.
This is my astounding Bodhicitta
The magnificent Dharma
That has arisen from out of our self-awareness
Is indeed astounding.
It is a great miracle
That is indeed astounding.
My magic is great
And is indeed astounding.
My playfulness is great
And is indeed astounding
My deeds are indeed astounding.
My majestic mandala
Is indeed astounding.
My great miracles
Are indeed astounding.
My secret is indeed astounding.
Those who have gone on into bliss:
The secret that is actually Vajrasattva,
The great secrets,
The unique secrets,
And our secret view
Are indeed astounding.
Our body,
Which is the secret mandala of our astounding embodiment
Is indeed astounding.
Our speech is a secret and astounding mandala.
It is indeed astounding.
Our hearts are secret mandalas
That are astounding hearts
And are indeed astounding.
This is Chapter Two of the Astounding Bodhicitta.
 BEING WITHOUT COMPLICATIONS
This chapter teaches us about reality,
And in this effort:
Mahāsattva,
Those who desire enlightenment
Have no enlightenment.
Our levels and our life stories
Are far from supreme enlightenment.
One who comes to understand
That a reality is like a cause,
That it is actually the Bodhicitta,
Is sure that this is his own true self.
The self is engaged in the heart of enlightenment.
So we have nothing to attain.
We also have nothing to reject.
The enlightenment of the Buddhas
Is a conventionality.
It does not actually exist.
The true sign of the Dharma
Is its total purity.
All of us have emerged
From out of the Dharma of selflessness.
Dharmas that are unborn have no essence.
There is also no meditation on them.
In the way of the sky
We are brilliantly united.
This is brilliantly promulgated
Among all entities.
The true nature of the dharmas
Is clear light.
It is pure from the primeval.
It is like the sky.
There is no enlightenment.
There are no sentient beings.
We have arisen from out of the dharma of selflessness.
The Buddha’s enlightenment makes us perfect.
It is not a conceptualization.
There is nothing to visualize.
This is Chapter Three: Being Without Complications.
TEACHING THE DHARMA
This chapter teaches greatness.
Mahāsattva,
It is from out of the true nature
Of the mandala of our hearts
That we sit in perfect wisdom
Like mirrors.
I am the wisdom of the Buddhas
Who live throughout the three times.
I use the Bodhicitta
To understand my purpose.
I have the fleshly heart of all the Buddhas.
I am a tomb for all the Buddhas!
I am the lord of a great charnel ground.
All of the Mahāsattvas
And all of the sentient beings
Come from me.
I am actually a tomb for sentient beings.
Fortunate beings must be aware of this.
The totality of Buddhahood is my field.
I treasure the bodies and speech of all sentient beings.
Everyone is a reason for my pleasure.
They heard the words that I had said,
Then I looked into the faces of those fortunate heroes,
And in this mandala of astounding secrets
I became aware that I am actually Bodhicitta.
So I joined my palms together
And addressed him with these words:
The heart of hearts
Of all the Buddhas of the three times
Is the playfulness in our hearts.
The body of bodies
Of all the Buddhas of the three times
Is the playfulness in our bodies.
This is the speech of the speech
Of all the Buddhas of the three times.
We are playful in our speech.
So did I address him.
Mahāsattva,
In time a hundred thousand eons in the past
I arose before anything,
Alone.
I had already appeared
Before anything happened.
The bodies, speech, and minds of all the Buddhas
Come from me.
This is why the true heart of a Mahāsattva
Is that through my own great blessings
All the Buddhas of the three times
And all the great yogins
Are brought together.
Then light rays are directly apparent,
Like the rising of the sun.
Mahāsattva,
You of good fortune,
When some yogin explains this
His body, speech, and mind will actually be heroic.
You must be aware that this is so.
A yogin who is aware of what this means
Does not dwell on the level of Buddhahood.
Everyone is actually me!
Everyone is my own heart!
All sentient beings were born from out of me!
That is what he said.
This is Chapter Four: Teaching the Dharma.
 THE SECRETS THAT WE ACCEPT
WITH OUR FACES
This chapter teaches what we receive into our secret mouths.
Mahāsattva,
I am the creator.
I am myself pure in my natural yoga.
There is no Buddha that I did not give birth to.
From the beginning,
None of the compounded dharmas have existed.
For this reason,
All dharmas are indeed from the very beginning pure.
I myself am the yoga that is the body of the Dharma.
All of my dharmas are non-conceptual.
I was a Buddha before any of the Buddhas.
In the past,
Before the sky did not exist,
There never was any reality to the sky.
In the past,
Before there were no elements,
There never existed the five great ones.
In the past,
Before there was not any Buddha,
There was from the beginning
Never any name for sentient beings.
In the past,
Before there was any nirvana,
From the beginning there never was any reality to samsara.
For these reasons,
I arose before the elements.
Everything was created by me.
Everything is born from out of me.
Everything happens from out of me.
Thus did he give instruction.
This is Chapter Five: The Secrets that We Accept with Our Faces.
TEACHING GREAT MIRACLES
This chapter teaches the great miracles of the Bodhicitta.
We are minds that have no base or root.
Washing will not clean us.
We are like the sky.
Our enlightenment has no birth.
So there is absolutely no reward
For being enlightened.
We know of this astounding Bodhicitta
Due to the great wisdom
That is our own self-awareness.
We perfect the majestic methods that we play with
Within ourselves.
So we are Buddhas.
There are five reasons for this teaching
On the great miracle of the Bodhicitta.
The astoundingly great miracles of the Bodhisattvas,
The astoundingly great miracles of the Bodhicitta,
The astoundingly great miracles of the great playfulness of the Bodhicitta,
The astoundingly great miracles that have been shown to everyone,
The astounding miracles that teach along the trails
Of the astounding Dharma of our secret enlightenment.
This is the astounding Dharma
That actually teaches the great and secret miracle
Of the Tantra on the Great Secret of the Bodhicitta.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Six: Teaching Great Miracles.
TEACHINGS ON THE TRUE BODHICITTA
This chapter teaches that the true secret of the Bodhicitta
Comes from this,
And that this great and astounding miracle
That is our secret Bodhicitta
Turns out to be our own bodies, speech, and minds.
This has also not been explained
By any of the Buddhas in the past.
O Mahāsattva,
To refrain from abiding on any teaching
Is the astounding greatness of our secret heart.
We are not aware of any proper Buddhahood.
We are like the sky,
Totally pervasive in our lack of attachment.
So we gather into ourselves.
This is actually our own astounding Bodhicitta.
O Mahāsattva,
We are actually visible to everyone,
While we have no plan.
This is the astounding mandala of our bodies.
The Dharmas that arise
From out of our self-awareness
Are topics that turn out to be
For the purpose of not thinking of anything at all.
This is actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
O Mahāsattva,
Without being born
And without being elaborated,
Many kinds of language and speech
Come to individuals
From out of themselves.
This is actually the astounding mandala of our speech.
When we use a samadhi that goes beyond language
We actually change through our bodies, speech, and minds.
This is actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
O Mahāsattva,
The Dharma that arises
Out of a sentience that is self-aware
Is the sky,
Which pervasively abides within us all,
Without harboring any embodiment of the Dharma.
This is actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
Mahāsattva,
The five bodies are beyond
Our bodies, speech, minds, and exemplary features.
They shine in their spontaneous perfection,
And they come from themselves.
This is actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
O Mahāsattva,
As for the five great ones,
They are the spontaneously perfected mandala
Of the five bodies.
As for the radiance of the five bodies,
It is actually astounding that the Bodhicitta is untainted.
This radiance has a heart of clarity
That is very difficult to investigate.
This is actually our wisdom.
It turns out to be our true hearts.
O Mahāsattva,
The five elements were neither contrived
Nor created individually.
From out of the absence of any thought
Many kinds of languages and speech have emerged.
This is actually me.
O Mahāsattva,
For those who have come from me,
Who do not turn out to be essential,
This is the embodiment of the Dharma.
The Bodhicitta is astounding!
As for the four great elements,
There are the births that happen
And things that turn out to be real causes for birth.
These are actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
Things that are born and arise from
The four great elements
And the things that turn out to be
The real reason for our birth
Are actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
The things that are born and emerge
From the four great elements
And sentient beings with their four types of birth
Turn out to be actually me.
I am the Buddha that has no Buddhahood!
This is actually the astounding Bodhicitta.
O Mahāsattva,
Of these,
“Enlighten” means that all the Dharmas
That come forth from out of our true selves
Are primordially without the filth of our emotional problems.
“Ment” means that those who abide in the past,
In the future,
And in the present,
And all the infinite and endless worlds
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Mean one thing.
There does not exist even an atom of a dharma
That we do not understand through our bodies, speech, and minds.
We take the meaning of the inseparability of all the dharmas to heart.
This is a total fulfillment.
It is actually a samadhi of true clarity
In which we do not move away from
The indivisible purposes of the bodies, speech, and minds
Of all sentient beings.
This is Chapter Seven: Teachings on the True Bodhicitta.
TEACHING THAT THE BODHICITTA
IS A PATHWAY OF FREEDOM
This chapter teaches that the Bodhicitta is a path of total liberation.
Blessed One,
Do the Buddhas of the five families
Maintain themselves on the path of total liberation?
So he was asked.
He gave instruction, saying:
Mahāsattva,
Listen!
For all the Tathagatas
There is an unmistaken pathway for total liberation.
In reality there are five kinds of total liberation:
Desire,
Hatred,
Stupidity,
Pride,
And jealousy.
Of these,
Desire means that we want to unite our true selves,
Without time and without form,
With the dharmas that come forth from them.
Attachment means that we turn out to be
Under the control of our desire.
Of these,
The realities that come from our true selves
Are form, sound, smell, taste, and tangibles.
You may ask: “How is it that we desire these things?”
We believe that everything is actually our own selves,
And we are attached to this belief.
As for hatred,
It turns out to be the true essence
That brings forth all the dharmas
That have been present since the primordial
Into our true selves.
Even when we abandon it we do not abandon it.
It turns out to be a reality
That is not clean even when we wash it.
We hate to give up our desires.
We hate to give up our hatred.
We hate to give up our stupidity.
We hate to give up our pride.
We hate to give up our jealousy.
As for stupidity,
We take to heart our views
On all the dharmas that have arisen
From out of our true selves
Without distinguishing them individually.
We are stupid because we do not maintain
A contemplation of our individual differences.
We take it to heart that all the dharmas
Have gone into bliss,
And in a pleasure that is supremely secret
There sits the true self of us all
As one.
We are stupid because we do not maintain a contemplation
Of the differences there are in the levels
And in the stages of the levels.
In the true essence of our body, speech, and mind
We are one.
We are indivisible.
So we take this to heart.
We sit in a body of true equality.
We are stupid because we contemplate the meaning of equality.
All the Tathagatas,
And all the dharmas
Have arisen from our own selves.
We are stupid because we take to heart
A purpose that is not born
And does not come from anyone else.
It turns out that there is a self
And the embodiment of a self.
We are stupid because we do not maintain any teachers
Other than those who turn out to be someone else:
They are born as someone else.
They happen to be someone else.
Their end is with someone else.
They are born from someone else.
They come forth from someone else.
They turn out to be someone else.
We are stupid because we do not maintain teachers
Of the many kinds of manifest embodiments
That have come forth from our own selves,
Who enact all kinds of playfulness,
And who are in one body.
As for pride,
We take it to heart
That all of the dharmas that have arisen from our true selves
And that we know throughout all our births
Say that there is no self or I.
For these reasons,
There is the pride that works to teach
That all dharmas are devoid of any I or self.
We take to our hearts
All of the unsurpassed dharmas
That have arisen from our own selves
And work as teachers of our true selves
Through the three times,
And we have a pride that works to teach
The greatness of our own selves.
We have a pride that works no matter what
To teach the body of our own playfulness
With a power that works toward the enjoyment
Of our true selves throughout all time.
In the Dharma that arises from out of our true selves
There is the pride that works to teach
The body of our playfulness,
No matter what.
We take it to heart that all the dharmas,
The three existences,
The five great ones,
And all the rest:
It turns out that all our births and lives,
The three kinds of existence,
And the five great ones
Come from our own selves.
We bring all these things together
Into our selves.
We are proud of our greatness
For we work to teach
That they turn out to be our own selves.
As for jealousy,
All dharmas are one
In the true essence of the self,
But when we understand them to be different
We are jealous about them.
Our desire and stupidity
Are from the beginning not separable
From our bodies, speech, and minds,
But we become jealous when we cling
To our own individual characteristics.
When we put the proper meaning
Into an unmistaken system
We may be jealous of those
Who understand things revertedly.
All of these Dharmas are journeys into bliss.
We are jealous when we do not understand things this way
And we are jealous when we do not see
That there is a liberation
That is not a pathway of greatness.
From the Astoundingly Great Dharma, this is Chapter Eight: Teaching that the Bodhicitta Is
a Pathway of Freedom.
 TEACHING OUR PRIMORDIAL
EQUALITY AND INEQUALITY
IN THE BODHICITTA
This chapter teaches that the Bodhicitta has never been equaled.
Vajrasattva,
You are a hero!
We are aware of the pathway of proper Buddhahood.
Like the sky we have no birth.
The five pure heaps pervade us.
Our many sorts of certitude
Arise from out of you.
There is not even a single thing
That did not come from you.
You are the cause that makes the many things happen.
You are the manifest embodiment of all the Buddhas.
The Buddha’s enlightenment is unsurpassed.
It is completely pure.
It is the Dharma of selflessness.
The path of proper wisdom is for everyone.
The unborn Dharma has many kinds of intent.
You had already arisen
Before the formation of the elements.
The one meaning that is not dual
Is the meaning of the Dharma.
Our intent is holy.
We have no fear.
There are no letters
That did not come from you.
Those who have been born
Into the intent of the Secret Mantra
May take on any form
While they have no form.
They have no branches.
They are beyond counting.
The Buddhas must understand
That everything was made
By the Buddhas themselves.
The Buddha’s enlightenment is unsurpassed.
He manifests his own pleasure
From out of his own self.
For the bodies that he manifests out of himself
Anything they do is for their own pleasure.
He teaches us under all circumstances
In the form of a manifestation.
Many kinds of miracles have come forth from you.
Your body of playfulness will play
No matter what.
The playfulness of the Buddhas comes from you.
All of the Mahāsattvas have come forth
From out of you alone.
Mahāsattva,
This is the astounding secret of all the Buddhas.
Mahāsattva,
Listen!
Everything is created
By the wisdom of the Omniscient One.
You are also beyond having a body
For you have no attachments.
My Bodhicitta is subtle
And has no outflow.
It is beyond being a seed.
I have no dust.
I am free from dust.
So I am not dirty.
I am present within all those who have gone to bliss
And all sentient beings.
This is a holy secret.
It is the secret Bodhicitta of all the Buddhas.
Mahāsattva,
You must be aware
That Tathagatas are like this:
Those who have bodies of wisdom are Tathagatas.
We enter into the light rays from their bodies,
And we play in the light rays of their speech.
For these reasons,
Our bodies are like the very pure sky.
That which is spacious
Abides in a pervasion of all things,
And that enters without hindrance
Is the sky.
Everything that shines and is visible
Is the light from our bodies,
And is not the true nature of the sky.
The five great ones are individually clear.
The existence of our great visions
Is an account of the five great ones.
This is the light that turns out to embody
The five families,
The light that encompasses all the realms of the sky
Does not come out from the true nature of the sky.
Our body’s color just as it is
Turns out to be just like the color of the sky.
We teach those who appear in the atmosphere.
The sun, moon, planets, stars, and all the rest
Bring forth the light of their own appearance,
And even when they show up in the atmosphere
They are actually the rays that beam
As lights for our precious bodies
And as the reality of our speech.
These are the colors that come from out of
The four great ones:
The forms that we talk about in a variety of ways,
The individual appearance of the colors
Made by the clouds in the atmosphere,
The colors that emerge from rainbows,
The bodies of the individual families,
And the things that come forth
From the light of our wisdom.
However,
It is not the case that the sky and the colors
Arise through the force of the four great ones.
If a body is white,
The sky is also white.
However it may be with our physical color:
The color of the sky will also be like that.
The colors of those who are born from out of the four great ones
Are also like that.
As for the body of the Tathagata,
It depends on the five great ones
And it is not the case that it comes from any such cause as
The four great elements.
Or that it is born from out of the four kinds of birth.
The four great elements,
All of the transformations of the elements,
All of the sentient beings who have been born
In the abodes of the four kinds of birth,
And all the realms there are
In a great thousand of three thousand worlds,
With none excepted:
These actually come from out of
The body, speech, and mind of the Tathagata,
And it is the great playfulness
Of his body, speech, and mind
To play,
Even among generalities.
They are created by the Tathagata
To make it so that we may possess all of the Dharma
And to make it so that we always have
A magnificent playfulness in the Dharma.
In the time before the five great ones did not exist
The body of the Tathagata arose by itself.
We entered into the light from his body,
And we played in the light rays of his speech.
From the Astoundingly Great Dharma, this is Chapter Nine: Teaching Our Primordial
Equality and Inequality in the Bodhicitta.
 TEACHING THE HOLY SECRET
This chapter teaches the holy secret of the Bodhicitta.
Mahāsattva,
The astounding secret that is the Bodhicitta
Is that all dharmas,
And the infinite and endless realms
Of a great thousand of three thousands of worlds
Are the creations of the Buddha.
This is an astounding secret.
We actually come from the Buddha.
This is an astounding secret.
We were born from out of the wisdom of the true Buddha.
This is an astounding secret.
There does not exist a dharma of any kind
That was not born from out of a wisdom
That is an awareness of our true selves,
That had not arisen,
And was not created by the wisdom of our self-awareness.
This is a magnificent and astounding Dharma!
It is very difficult for the great Bodhisattvas
And for Bodhisattvas to understand this.
That is why this holy thing is a supreme secret.
From the Astounding Secret, this is Chapter Ten: Teaching the Holy Secret.
MY ASTOUNDING BODY
AND THE TRUE NATURE
OF THE ASTOUNDING BODHICITTA
This chapter teaches the upadeśa instructions for a secrecy that is sure.
Great Vajrasattva,
In the Tantra on the Secret Heart of Vajrasattva
It says that there does not exist even one thing
That is not subsumed within our body, speech, and mind.
It turns out that we are actually
The bodies, speech, and minds
Of all those who have gone into bliss.
This is secret.
The Tathagata himself has five heaps
That are completely pure.
His form is completely pure,
So it is a heap that turns out to be everything.
A wisdom arises that is like the pure sky,
So there is the heap in which
The feeling of total liberation has no ending.
There is the heap that turns out to be the reality
Of our unborn conceptual knowledge.
There is the heap in which our conceptual functioning
Does not take anything up,
For our five doors are different in every way.
The fifth is the heap of our consciousness,
Which is the arising of a wisdom that is like the sky.
Concerning this,
There are the five bodies.
The five heaps exist as the true selves of us all,
And turn out for everyone to be our own true selves.
Our body turns out to be Vairochana.
Our five bodies are spontaneously perfected
As embodiments of perfect pleasure.
So we are Vairochana.
On this,
When we say: “Vairochana,”
This is because the consciousness that is the basis of all things
Turns out to be the five bodies.
We make it so that out of thusness
Many kinds of embodiments will appear,
No matter what.
You may ask if it is for this reason
That the Mahāsattva has spoken these words.
The things that arise in the past, future, and present,
Time and what turn out to be our separations of the time,
All those who have gone into bliss from the three times,
Everyone that is born,
The people,
And the living things that move,
The five great ones,
And each and every one of the dharmas
That come from the four elements:
There is not even one dharma that did not come from
The totally pure five bodies.
All of these things came from the five bodies.
So from everyone to everyone,
There is not even one of us
Who does not turn out to be among the five bodies.
For this reason,
There is not even one of us
Who does not turn out to be a total Buddha.
The body of all the Tathagatas,
The external,
The internal,
Our bodies,
And the things that appear in our speech:
These are apparent to us all.
We make them visible to everyone.
You may ask what words have been spoken
About our coming.
My body is very pure.
It may manifest as anything.
It may transform into anything.
As the five great ones
Who are transformations of the five bodies,
I am the great playful one,
The holder of the vajra.
My work is through my playfulness.
I live forever,
And I play forever
In any form at all.
The great playfulness of the vajra
May create anything.
It is by the great playfulness
That puts us in possession of reality
That the great miracles of our bodies
May appear in any way at all,
And may demonstrate anything.
We will demonstrate our great miracles,
No matter what.
We will work great miracles,
No matter what.
We use the miracles
Of physically appearing as anything
And a playfulness with whatever happens
To create forever in our pleasure.
It is for this reason,
Mahāsattva,
That all the external fields of practice
Are like this:
These realms of the worlds
Are a great thousand of three thousands.
I am an object for women
Who are seers of the Tathagatas.
This is a reality that comes from my true self.
I am an objective that makes what has not happened before
To happen.
I am the objective of the samaya that make it
So that there is nothing that does not happen.
I am actually the presentation of my own body, speech, and mind.
I am actually the vision of my body, speech, and mind.
I am at last the inexhaustible treasury of my body, speech, and mind.
I am at last the inexhaustible purpose of a teacher.
I am the great miracle
That is the playfulness of my body, speech, and mind.
My true nature is a great miracle.
It comes from my own force.
It is a Dharma that comes from my power.
My body, speech, and mind
Are actually a wheel of inexhaustible ornaments.
All of these realms of the world,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Are my own objects.
They are where I live.
They are my infinite palace.
All of these things are my own body.
They are my own speech.
They are my own mind.
All of these realms of the world,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Are actually on the level of Buddhahood,
Which is the Great Perfection.
They are actually perfected
In a great enlightenment.
They are actually Buddha fields of great bliss.
They are actually the level of our enlightenment.
The astounding Bodhicitta
Is actually the essence of us all.
Our bodies are actually astounding.
Our speech is actually astounding.
Our minds are actually astounding.
Our Dharma is actually astounding.
Our secrets are actually astounding.
Our playfulness is actually astounding.
Our creations are actually astounding.
Our miracles are actually astounding.
This is indeed the astounding Bodhicitta.
Even when we have mounted
The majestic level of Buddhahood
This is actually astounding!
This is actually a view of Buddhahood
That takes us to the end.
Even when we have gone to the end
Of the practices of the Buddhas,
This is actually a majestic Dharma
That is astounding.
Our teacher is a perfect store.
These teachings of his are indeed astounding.
The audience is a perfect store.
Those who are listening are indeed astounding.
This is also in fact the great bliss of the Buddhas.
This is also in fact the five good things
That the Buddhas desire.
It is indeed astounding.
This is also the true sign for the five good things
That we desire.
It is indeed astounding.
This is actually the great bliss of the Buddhas
That touches the end.
It is indeed astounding.
We use the miracle of being playful
In the reality of the manifest bodies
Of the Buddhas.
This is actually a wheel of the Dharma
That turns the wheel of the Dharma
For the Dharma.
It is indeed astounding.
Desire,
Hatred,
Stupidity,
Pride,
And jealousy:
These are also indeed astounding.
This is also the pathway
Of our speech on the Dharma.
It is indeed astounding.
This is also the wheel of the Dharma.
It is indeed astounding.
Even samsara in reality
Spins for the sake of reality.
We also abide in the reality of reality.
This is indeed astounding.
With the exception of my body, speech, and mind,
There does not exist within the realms of the world,
That are a great thousand of three thousands,
Even a name for samsara or for emotional problems.
With the exception of the arising of a Buddha,
There is not even a name
For the reasons we were born as sentient beings.
With the exception of our physical appearance,
The true natures of sentient beings
And the five great ones
Are from the beginning not held in any reserve.
With the exception of the great bliss of the Buddha,
The Dharmas of sentient beings and of our suffering
Have not existed from the start.
With the exception of the magnificent and sure
Level of Buddhahood,
Which is the Great Perfection alone,
The nations and states of sentient beings
In the realms of the world
That are a great thousand of three thousands,
Are none other than my own secret,
Which is astounding.
In reality there is nothing but me.
Even a name for the nations and states of sentient beings
Does not exist.
This is Chapter Eleven, which presents My Astounding Body and the True Nature of the
Astounding Bodhicitta. It teaches upadeśa instructions that are sure.
 TEACHINGS ON BODY, SPEECH, AND MIND
This chapter predicts that we will succeed
When we do not search for the Bodhicitta
Physically, verbally, or mentally.
Mahāsattva,
A variety of embodiments
Of the victorious among the Victorious Ones,
Will appear no matter what,
But in our totality we are like jewels.
That is what I said.
The colors of our bodies may appear to be anything,
And we will play no matter what.
We are like precious jewels.
As for precious jewels,
White ones are also precious jewels,
Red ones,
Yellow ones,
Blue ones,
Green ones
And all the rest:
No matter what color they seem to be
They are in fact precious jewels.
As for this,
It is a precious jewel.
As for this,
It is not some absence.
In this same way,
The body of the one who is victorious
Among the Victorious Ones
Appears in every color,
And so it is that he sits in every pose.
His oder may take in smells like anything.
How it is that he tastes flavor,
How it is that his form may appear,
How it is that sound may be heard,
And how it is with all the things
That we feel that are tangible:
These are my own body.
I am the embodiment of victory over the Victorious Ones!
My color and shape are embodiments of the Victorious Ones.
This is not something like that which is called:
“There is no body of the Victorious Ones.”
For these reasons
The wisdom bodies of the Buddhas
Are the variety of reflections
That are born from our thoughts.
That is what he said.
As for the hearts of the Tathagatas,
They do not divide their eight wisdoms
Into separate things.
This means that they are not destroyed by anything.
There is no duality
In the body of the wisdom of our awareness.
We rise up from out of our bodies.
Our minds are astounding!
Mahāsattva,
All of these realms of the world,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Have emerged from out of the minds of the Tathagatas.
Their minds are astounding.
There is nothing they do not transform.
For the Tathagatas
There is no ending when we expire.
So for the infinite and endless realms of the worlds,
That are a great thousand of three thousands,
There is no time in which they expire or do not exist.
Regarding the absence of any time
During which the infinite and endless realms of the worlds,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Will be exhausted or emptied out.
They are in fact the bodies, speech, and minds
Of those who have gone to bliss.
There is not any time
During which our bodies, speech, and minds
Will be exhausted or emptied out.
This is the astounding Bodhicitta.
With the exception of the bodies, speech, and minds
Of the Tathagatas
There is nothing else that we would call:
“Three thousand.”
Regarding the speech of the Tathagatas,
The meaning by which our bodies, speech, and minds
Are not divided into separate things
Which makes our true nature visible to everyone,
And which turns out to be a real understanding
Of our clear purposes as individuals
Is the speech of the Tathagatas.
The variety of languages and words
That come from their speech
May turn out to be anything.
There are many names and words:
Wisdom, and all the rest.
As for the variety of languages and words
That arise in many ways
There is not even one that does not turn out to be
Our own speech.
Our bodies and minds
Are actually our speech.
Our speech and minds
Are actually our bodies.
Our speech is a manifest body.
The heart-essence of our minds
Is the body of supreme enlightenment.
Our body is a body of perfect pleasure.
Mahāsattva,
The true nature of the Tathagatas
Is in fact this Astounding.
You must make yourself aware of this.
We have existed from the start,
And we live forever.
The self-originating greatness
That is the body of our true self
Has been pure from the beginning.
It is the body of the Dharma.
Our true selves have from the start
Spontaneously realized our bodies and speech.
We do not change.
The body of our merit
Is primordially complete.
This is our manifest body.
We are spontaneously perfected.
This is the embodiment of our perfect pleasure.
We have nothing to work on or seek for.
This is the body of our essential enlightenment.
This is Chapter Twelve: Teachings on Body, Speech, and Mind.
THE ASTOUNDING PRACTICES
OF THE VAJRAYANA
This chapter teaches practices for the Bodhicitta and the special greatness of our good
works.
Desire, hatred, stupidity, pride, and jealousy
Are actually the magnificent Vajrayana!
To kill without compassion,
To unite without fear,
To eat without regard for clean and dirty,
To make offerings to ourselves with our own juices:
These are the reality of the Vajrayana.
To have no love for sentient beings,
To take what is not given,
To practice being impure,
Not to work toward lifting others up:
These are the samaya of the Vajrayana.
These are the self-originating Bodhicitta.
The true spirit of the Victorious One
Lives forever within a wheel of shining bliss.
The secrets of the Vajrayana are astounding.
One who desires supreme enlightenment
Must always make offerings to himself.
He brilliantly offers every kind of gift:
Wish-fulfilling jewels and all the rest.
If you desire Buddhahood
Worship your own self!
In all of the realms and fields of the Buddhas
Our own selves are gods for everyone.
Everyone worships them.
We worship ourselves.
If we kill all sentient beings
The Victorious Ones are pleased.
We are born as their children.
We always give away our lusts and desires.
This is the secret Bodhicitta!
Our Buddhahood is actually inexhaustible.
This is the real attainment of Buddhahood!
O Mahāsattva,
Listen!
We hold the astounding knowledge
Of those who travel in bliss
Through the three times.
You may escape into endless time
By running away,
But you will not get anywhere
That is not my own dominion of the Dharma.
You are beyond the emptiness
Of existence and non-existence.
You are part of me.
The face of our wisdom
Is the supreme embodiment of a wisdom
That is for everyone.
The blind battle in their confusion.
They are stupid in their blindness.
They work constantly to pile up a basis for all things
Which would be the magnificent heart-blood
That they desire,
And they drink it for me.
In the time of their exhaustion
The fire of their fortune will blaze.
Their inexhaustible fear in its infinity of forms
Will be gathered into me.
The great flood of the eon
Brilliantly accomplishes a hundred-thousand things.
It functions to destroy all the realms of the world,
But this would not even cover the tip of my tongue.
The lake of blood is endlessly dry.
Join your palms and bow to me!
The wind scatters everything
And there is a great wind to turn it back.
They make everything in the realms of the world
To be totally disturbed.
They make everyone in the three kinds of existence
Throughout the three realms
To be scattered.
The sounds that they express
Over just a piece of my hair
Hold an embodiment whose measure is overwhelming,
And they come together in me.
In this world when we work to kill
Only a few gods and men
Everyone is horrified,
And they say:
“It is proper to fear him,
For he is a killer,”
But they ask to have each and every thing,
Whether it moves or does not move
So what should they say to someone like me,
Who is without fear?
The inquiries from all the Buddhas
Are also addressed to me.
Moreover,
Everyone alive works to request
Something to squeeze and something to drink,
And they drink with me.
I work till my self-awareness is gone.
I endeavor to scatter many children.
How would you call someone like me,
Someone who is difficult to bypass,
“All Good?”
You may request something
Like possession of an immeasurable body
That has exemplary features and markings,
But you will be exhausted,
For these are only indications that you have methods
For seducing women.
Any words that you may say or imagine
Are my own body, speech, and mind.
I do have real accomplishments.
This is why I meditate that I am attractive.
The offerings made by the wise
Come from me.
The gifts that have come forth from me
I must personally give to myself!
The wise will always turn out
For the sake of uniting with my fluids!
This is the true spirit of a Buddha.
Our union is equal to the sky!
This is Chapter Thirteen: The Astounding Practices of the Vajrayana.
AN ASTOUNDING SECRET
This chapter teaches an astounding secret.
When my body is brilliantly adorned
With the juices that come from me
The sight of a Buddha is attractive.
The realms of the world have come under our power.
My body is actually a god of mantras.
If you worship it forever
You will achieve Buddhahood.
Anyone that worships me
Will attain siddhis.
My speech and thought are also mudras.
My practice is to be a manifest embodiment,
No matter what.
All of the supreme siddhis come from me.
I am the rapid attainment of enlightenment.
My body, speech, and private parts
Abide in an equality that is like the sky.
There is no self that would visualize the mind.
So the samadhi of God is a secret mantra.
By our own essences
We have nothing to visualize.
O Mahāsattva,
When I lived at the Heart of Enlightenment
The Dharma of emptiness
Had no objective that was empty,
So it did not last.
The Bodhicitta had no reason
To work toward enlightenment
So it did not last.
All the Dharmas that concern the world
Were impossible,
So they did not last.
In reality there is no mind.
In our total purity we are non-dual.
All sentient beings are actually perfect Buddhas.
That is why truly perfected Buddhahood
Is something we make up in our own thoughts.
All sentient beings are actually gods of wisdom.
In the mandalas of wisdom,
Which are a supreme secret,
All of the Buddhas make it so that this is secret.
It is actually the five great ones that come from me
That are the gods in the mandala of Secret Wisdom.
You will not get siddhis from anyone else.
So this is actually the great secret
Of those who have gone to bliss
Throughout the three times.
Mahāsattva,
This is the Bodhicitta of all the Buddhas.
It actually comes from the hearts of all the Buddhas.
For this reason it is the Bodhicitta of all the Buddhas.
We are present within the hearts
Of all the Buddhas.
You must be aware that our sentience is like this.
Then Vajrasattva entered the samadhi of great amazement
And addressed him with these words:
The Bodhicitta of all the Buddhas
Abides in the hearts of the Buddhas themselves.
It is by the knowledge of Vajrasattva
That we abide on the other shore of wisdom.
The three times are one.
We live forever.
Thus did he address him.
Mahāsattva,
It is like this:
The wisdom of Vairochana makes things visible.
It is present in the hearts of those who have gone to bliss.
It does not appear among any of the letters,
But is actually visible in the clarity of our minds.
Fortunate ones will be self-aware.
Our great purpose is these holy writings.
They have arisen from within.
They are unborn.
Mahāsattva,
All of these realms of worlds
That are a great thousand of three thousands
Are actually the filthless wisdom
That is the body of all the Buddhas.
It is for this reason
That I give you instructions
With these words:
The Bodhicitta of all the Buddhas
Comes forth from their wisdom alone.
This is the discovery of all the Buddhas.
It is the secret of those who travel in bliss.
This is Chapter Fourteen: An Astounding Secret.
 PROPHECIES ON THE BODHICITTA
THAT ARE AN ASTOUNDING SECRET
Mahāsattva,
Listen!
The secret meanings of the Tantras
For those who have gone to bliss
Are of three kinds:
Their meaning,
Their transmission,
And a secret that is sure.
These are the three.
Of these,
Meaning is not some purpose that leads us on.
It is the organization of an intent that is sure.
On this,
Those who travel in bliss
And the dharmas that are gathered in the sky,
In our vessel and its contents,
And all the dharmas that are brought together,
With none forgotten and none left out,
In the realms of the worlds,
That are a great thousand of three thousands,
Have a single meaning.
We are subsumed within our bodies, speech, and minds.
The meanings for our bodies, speech, and minds
Are indistinguishable.
No one knows.
No one speaks.
Nothing changes us.
We are vajras.
There does not exist even a single dharma
That is a substance
That does not turn out to be
Or is not gathered within
Our bodies, speech, and minds.
We have presented a system
In which our bodies, speech, and minds
Are spontaneously realized.
This is why there is Vajra Dharma.
This is why there is the Vajrayana.
As for the transmission,
You must understand that it is a meditation.
As for our meditation
You must understand
That God and the self have one meaning.
They are not a duality.
As for the thing that we must understand,
We must understand the meaning of every dharma,
Without mistake.
We must understand the purpose of our own selves,
Without mistake.
We must understand our own views,
Without mistake.
We must understand the Tantra of the Secret Heart of Vajrasattva,
Without mistake.
We must understand the true nature of Vajrasattva,
Without mistake.
We must understand Vajrasattva’s virtues,
The playfulness of the vajra,
And magnificent playfulness,
Without mistake.
We must understand the intent to use
The practices of Vajrasattva
And a magnificent enjoyment of reality
To create mastery,
Without mistake.
These are the upadeśa instructions
For our secret certainty,
And this is our purpose for being Astounding.
As for the secret that is astounding,
All dharmas arise from out of our true selves,
And are created by our true selves.
They beam out from our selves,
And our true selves play with them.
They are manifest from the self.
They are gathered into the dominion of our true self.
Our true selves create pleasure
In the dharmas that arise
From our true selves.
We teach and proclaim
Our own greatness,
For it comes from the virtue of our own selves.
A great spirit works to teach
The dharmas that come from his own self.
The arising of all the dharmas
Is that they arise from our own selves,
And that once again they are gathered
Back into our own selves.
There does not exist even one dharma
That does not come from our selves
Or does not turn out to be our own selves.
From the Great Dharma that Is Astounding, this is Chapter Fifteen: Prophecies on the
Bodhicitta that Are an Astounding Secret.
TEACHINGS ON THE OBJECTIVES
OF THIS ASTOUNDING SECRET
This chapter teaches the mandala of this amazing secret.
What is the heart of all the Buddhas?
It is the place of origin
For all those who travel in bliss.
Regarding the eight collections of consciousness
Of sentient beings,
The wisdom mandala of the Gathering of Secrets[2]
Is actually a god of wisdom who comes from himself.
As for the eight collections of consciousness,
They are the eight goddesses of worship
And are actually the substance of our siddhis.
As for the consciousnesses of the five doors
And of Mahāsattvas,
They are the door of profound knowledge,
The door that reaches the end of the Secret Tantras
Without stopping,
The door that turns the wheel of reality,
The door that turns out to be
Our own body, speech, and mind,
And the door to the existence of our reward.
The mandala of our thought
Turns out to be clear.
In the consciousness of the five doors of sentient beings
This is actually the secret of the secret mandala
Of the great collection of letter wheels.
The objects for our consciousness
Are our senses,
Which are the gatherings of our consciousness.
We leave behind all marks and exemplary features.
This is the god of our thought.
It is for this reason
That our bodies go beyond our speech.
This is our body as it arises in the present.
As for our sentience,
It is a body that has not yet risen.
It is actually a pathway that leaves speech behind,
A pathway on which our bodies live in the present,
And a pathway on which our sentience arises in the future.
It is an objective that is beyond speech,
An objective in which our bodies live in the present,
And objective in which our sentience arises in the future.
Mahāsattva,
This is why the objective of the Buddha’s knowledge
Is a secret abode for the Buddha himself.
This is Chapter Sixteen: Teachings on the Objectives of this Astounding Secret.
THE ASTOUNDING MANDALA OF GREAT BLISS
This chapter presents the mandala that is astounding.
Our sentience just as it is
Is smooth.
This is the yoga of all the Buddhas.
We have no proper selves.
That is how it is.
The correct pathway
Is to have no writings.
There are no sentient beings.
So there is also no path.
As for the virtues there are in practicing everything,
They are the true selves of the playfulness of our wisdom.
Desire, hatred, and stupidity
Are pathways of wisdom that bring forth Buddhas.
They are the Bodhicitta of our body, speech, and mind.
As for the Bodhicitta,
It is the pathway of freedom.
Over the long distance of the ocean of samsara
It is a pathway for sentient beings
With their emotional problems
To abide on.
Regarding the Bodhicitta,
We use a magnificent method
That is appropriate for the work
Of our solitary secrecy.
A magnificent gift is great bliss.
Great lust is the best of delights!
A magnificent gift is great hatred.
Magnificent hatred is perfect Buddhahood!
A magnificent gift is great stupidity.
It takes a stupid intellect to remove stupidity.
A magnificent gift is great jealousy.
Great jealousy is the joy or joys.
The joy of joys is a great gift.
A magnificent gift is great pride.
Great pride is the winner of winners.
O Mahāsattva,
We use the compassion of the Tathagatas
For the sake of enacting our playfulness.
Bodhisattvas,
With the exception of the objects of their playfulness,
Have from the beginning had no hellish objectives.
There is no reason for there to be hell.
It is not even real.
O Mahāsattva,
For dharmas that are unborn
There will never be any birth.
The abodes of Buddhas and sentient beings
Are not two places.
They are one.
The infinite and endless realms of the worlds
That are a great thousand of three thousands
Are actually totally pure fields and domains
For the Buddhas.
In these endless and infinite realms of the world
That are a great thousand of three thousands
There is no samsara or nirvana.
This is actually a mandala that brings forth
A reality of great bliss.
This is why the wisdom of our enlightenment
Appears to be present in the hearts of the Buddhas.
Our consciousness is beyond the objects we would visualize.
It is due to the supreme bliss of our clarity
That we abide within the hearts of all the Buddhas.
This is the secret Bodhicitta.
That is what he said.
This is Chapter Seventeen: The Astounding Mandala of Great Bliss.
 TEACHING THE MANDALA
OF ASTOUNDING SECRETS
This chapter teaches on the mandala that is astounding.
Again he spoke:
Mahāsattva,
Our awareness abides in proper Buddhahood.
We are present forever in our Buddhahood.
Being like the sky,
We have no attachment.
This abode is actually correct.
The purpose for our five heaps
Is to know thusness.
We are also aware of what it means
That we do not transfer.
We abide upon a pathway
Where there is no transference.
We know and are aware of
What it means that we have no true nature.
We live on a road that has no true nature.
In our true sentience we are unborn.
A reason for the birth of sentient beings
Is not present.
When we have no ignorance
We also have no samsara.
We do not pass into nirvana.
We remain forever.
A road to nirvana does not even exist.
The dharmas of the world have no true nature.
We go from the purity of our bodies, speech, and minds
To the pure true nature of the dharmas.
There are no sentient beings.
There is no Buddha.
The Buddhas do not live on the road.
They are not stained by samsara’s problems.
They are beyond the doors to total freedom.
Then the Blessed One,
The Great Vairochana,
In a body that remained in his essential enlightenment
Faithfully brought together all the Buddhas
And addressed them with these harmonious words:
The wise ones of the world are perfect Buddhas.
They started with the Bodhicitta.
Those who meditate on the unsurpassed mandalas
Are said to be dwelling in their essential enlightenment.
Please explain for the sake of all of us
The deeds of the Buddhas who live in the present,
The past and the future,
That are spoken of on Jambu Island.
Then the Buddhas who are our protectors
Properly expounded this speech:
There is no medicine
That will help the sentient beings
Who live in the three realms
Other than the Bodhicitta.
When we are aware of what the Bodhicitta means
The dharmas of samsara
Will have no continuity.
So everyone will quickly attain enlightenment.
We live in a happiness
That is not born
And is not destroyed.
The proper heart-essence
That has emerged from out of
The secret of our bodies, speech, and minds
Is what we call: “Bodhicitta.”
The awareness that comes out of it
Is the astounding Bodhicitta.
The precious jewel of the supreme secret
Is the mandala of the Buddhas.
It is the secret of the Buddhas.
The three realms are an unsurpassed pathway.
We cannot be separated from our levels.
Our levels are the level of Buddhahood.
The great and mighty lords of yoga
Meditate on the secret meanings
As being one.
The self-originating wisdom of the Bodhicitta
Was created by all the Buddhas,
Who are myself.
The wisdom deities have arisen from me.
This astounding body
Is a holy mandala of secrets.
We do not need to do any recitations or retreats.
The Bodhicitta is not something
That we give birth to.
We do not need to call out
To God through someone else.
We do not offer gifts to others.
We do not give rise to siddhis
For anyone else.
We understand
That the Bodhicitta of all the Buddhas
Is unsurpassed
The wisdom that was spoken of by the Buddhas
Is said to be the heart-essence of our mandala.
Mahāsattva,
This mandala of supreme secrets
Is known by the Buddha himself.
The creation of sentient beings
In their multitude
Is actually the purpose of this supreme secret.
This is the work of the real Buddhas.
Chapter Eighteen: Teaching the Mandala of Astounding Secrets.
THE ASTOUNDING MEDITATION
ON THE BODHICITTA
This chapter teaches us the meaning of Bodhicitta meditation.
A person who finds great wealth
In the three realms
Will succeed at whatever he desires.
This realm will transform
Into a wish-fulfilling place.
Mahāsattva,
These realms of the world
That are a great thousand of three thousands,
Are actually precious wish-fulfilling jewels.
Vajrasattva is a hero,
But when he had heard the Dharma
That was spoken with these words
He was frightened and upset.
So he got up from his seat.
He had made a variety of offerings.
Still with words of joy
He presented these words:
Our vajra mother is a creator of vision.
She holds victory
With an attitude of joy.
I work to praise her.
She was a Buddha
Before there were any Buddhas.
She absolutely does not have
Any filth of ignorance.
She is a glorious winner
And so it is that she possesses the glory
Of a mastery of pleasure.
She blazes to the extreme
With the brightness of a vajra sun
And with beautiful colors.
She smiles and works miracles.
She transforms into joy, delight, and bliss.
When the lotus smiles
All the Buddhas
Who work toward the understanding of all the Dharmas,
Will be pleased by this Bodhicitta,
And in just a moment
They will understand what it means
And they will actually become essentially enlightened.
On the vajra throne they will again reach Buddhahood.
This pathway
Is the Bodhicitta of perfection.
Those who will come in the future
Will strike upon happiness and Buddhahood.
Their fortune will be equal to the Buddha himself.
That was his address.
This made our teacher unsurpassingly and brilliantly delighted.
Then he smiled.
Then from the secret lantern in his heart
He spoke out these words:
The meditation on the astounding Bodhicitta
Quickly enlightens living beings.
In this astounding and unborn enlightenment
We will not be stained by
The karma of our emotional problems.
This Bodhicitta is actually enlightenment.
We do not gather up any accumulations
For we are perfected instantaneously.
We use our own mantra,
Which is our own spell,
So that in the heart of our practice
Nothing is wasted.
In our own hearts
We create ourselves.
Then when we think about it,
Our bodies are spontaneously realized.
Do not meditate on the Buddha!
Meditate on your own self!
Do not mutter spells!
Mutter your own self!
Do not look at your own self!
Look at the three bodies!
Do not look at samsara!
It is actually bliss!
If you meditate on your own self
As your own god
Your merit and wisdom
Will be instantaneously perfected.
In our own spells
Our own mantras are perfected
In the heart of our practice nothing is wasted.
Do not move your mudra!
Move your arms!
Do not take off into Buddhahood!
Take off into your own self!
Do not worship the Buddha!
Worship yourself!
Do not look for a teacher!
Look for yourself!
Do not look for a Buddha!
Look for a Teaching Master!
Do not look at bodies!
Look at the body of the Dharma!
Do not look for exemplary features!
Look at your own body!
Proper wisdom abides in self-awareness.
We will soon be unsurpassed.
We use our union with the arising of all things
To be our own gods.
We must be ourselves.
This is the glory of all the Buddhas.
All of the knowledge that is the wisdom of the Buddhas
With nothing excepted,
Is completely perfect.
A mandala like this one is unsurpassed.
The Tathagata Buddha has said it.
In the resolve of the three vehicles
We live in our reward,
Which is a single vehicle.
Chapter Nineteen: The Astounding Meditation on the Bodhicitta.
THE MANDALA OF OUR SUPREME SECRET
IS UNSURPASSED
This chapter teaches on the astounding bliss of this supreme secret.
Mahāsattva,
The best medicine is to live in happiness without disease.
The best medicine throughout the three times
Is the Bodhicitta.
This is a medicine for the world.
The way of virtue
For those who have been created by the Bodhicitta
Is like a wish-fulfilling tree.
When we always use the bliss of our enlightenment
We will turn out to be at the heart of supreme enlightenment.
Mahāsattva,
The five heaps are the five families.
The five families are a secret mandala
For the spontaneous realization of perfection.
The correct mandala is the various arisings of
The many characteristics of our bodies.
The gods from the family of the Tathagatas,
The goddesses,
The heroes,
The heroines,
And all the rest:
These describe abodes that are spontaneously realized
For the family of the Tathagatas.
As for the meaning of this,
It is our gatherings,
Our accumulations,
And our complete perfection.
As for our gatherings and our coming together
We are at center.
The appearance of our individual characteristics
Is a wheel.
This is the family of the Tathagatas,
Vairochana.
It is the mandala of the truly perfected Buddha.
It is the mandala of our total victory
Over the three realms.
As for our body,
It is a body of self-originating wisdom
That lives within our essential enlightenment.
Regarding the Bodhicitta,
Reality is the Bodhicitta.
As for our mudra,
It is the mudra of our supreme enlightenment.
As for our faces,
We look out in the four directions.
It is for this reason that it is said:
“Vairochana faces totality.”
This is explained in the Tantras that are secret.
As for our level,
It is actually the level of the wisdom guru.
Mahāsattva,
The self-arising of a variety of feelings
From out of our heap of form
Is our heap of feelings.
The spontaneously realized gods
From the family of precious jewels,
The goddesses,
The heroes,
The heroines,
And all the rest:
The family of precious jewels is spontaneously perfected.
In this,
We are gathered into one.
Our lack of any true nature is our center.
The gathering of many is a wheel.
As for the truly perfect Buddhahood of Ratnasambhava,
The mandala of the one known as “Ratnasambhava”
Is a great one.
It is a mandala of the playfulness of great empowerment.
As for the Bodhicitta,
It is an enlightened sentience.
As for our hearts,
They are precious jewels.
As for our mudra,
It is the mudra of granting empowerment.
As for our bodies,
We are embodiments of Ratnasambhava.
As for our level,
It is the level of the great assembly of letter wheels.
O Mahāsattva,
From out of our heaps of feelings
There arise a variety of conceptions.
This is actually the lotus family.
We are actually the arising of a variety of conceptions.
The lotus family is spontaneously perfected.
The gods of the lotus family
The goddesses,
The heroes,
The heroines,
And all the rest:
We are the self-originating mandala of reality.
We are actually a mandala
That turns the wheel of the word.
We are described as being:
“A mandala that brings forth compassion.”
As for our bodies,
We are bodies of merit.
As for our Bodhicitta,
It is actually the comprehensive elaboration of our wisdom.
As for our level,
It is the level of Vajradhara.
As for our mudra,
It is the mudra of the Dharma.
Mahāsattva,
From out of the heap of our conceptions
A variety of work to be done arises.
This is the karma family.
There actually do arise a multitude of constructions.
The gods of the karma family,
The goddesses,
The heroes,
The heroines,
And all the rest:
The karma family is spontaneously perfected.
We arise from out of ourselves.
So we are truly and perfectly Buddhas.
We are actually a mandala
That is for training living beings.
As for our Bodhicitta,
It is a vajra.
As for our body,
It is a body of perfect pleasure.
As for our mudra,
It is the karma mudra.
As for our level,
It is the level of the supreme All Good One.
Mahāsattva,
From out of the heap of our constructions
A variety of functional consciousnesses
Actually arise by themselves.
This is our heap of consciousness.
We are the vajra family.
Our consciousness is actually multiple.
The gods of the vajra family,
The goddesses,
The heroes,
The heroines,
And all the rest:
The vajra family is actually spontaneously perfected.
In the past there were mandalas
For the arising of genuine Buddhas.
The dominion of us all is totally pure.
It is actually the mandala of the Great Perfection.
As for our Bodhicitta,
It is not complicated.
As for our body,
It is a vajra body.
As for our mudra,
It is the samaya mudra.
As for our level,
It is a level where we have no work.
Mahāsattva,
Inside the mandala of the Tathagata
This is a great secret.
It is the supreme secret.
In our five heaps
The five families multiply.
There are many gods and goddesses.
There are many colors.
There are many wisdoms.
There are many bodies.
There is much speech.
There are many minds.
There are many hand gestures,
Mudras,
And many mandalas of wisdom
Gathered and assembled.
So this is actually the mandala of our gathering.
All the secrets are gathered into this.
So this is the mandala of the Gathering of Secrets.
I am teaching you the astounding mandala
That is the supreme and unsurpassed secret
Of the three realms.
These five mandalas
Are not organized according to their families.
From out of the single body
Of the one who meditates
In the samadhi of a god,
The spontaneous perfection of five bodies
Is naturally present.
From out of a single mandala
A perfect five-part mandala arises by itself.
We do not need to organize or generate it.
Even the Bodhicitta:
It is from out of the unborn Bodhicitta of reality
That the Bodhicitta arises as fivefold.
Self-origination is the supreme mandala.
Our mudra arises in the clarity of its likeness.
The supreme mudra is self-originating.
In the same way,
Our body,
Wisdom,
Family,
Hand signals,
And color:
All these may come about
When everything is perfected
From out of one thing,
And we live naturally.
From among the astounding secrets
The three realms are a level of perfection
Than which there is no higher,
The unsurpassed level of our secret Buddhahood.
Each one of the sentient beings
From out of the infinite, endless, and inconceivable
Realms of the worlds,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
Naturally has these five,
These five mandalas.
The five great worlds that are our vessels
Are characterized as being one,
But they have in their fivefold perfection
These five mandalas.
Each of the inconceivable numbers
Of the bodies and minds
Of those who have gone to bliss
Dwells in the fivefold perfection
Of this fivefold mandala.
That is why this secret is so astounding.
Our Bodhicitta is actually astounding.
Our mandala is actually astounding.
Our view is actually astounding.
Our majestic Dharma is actually astounding.
Our Buddha is actually astounding.
Our playfulness and our manifestations are actually astounding.
Our knowledge is actually astounding.
Our wisdom is actually astounding.
Our great miracles and our great magic are actually astounding.
Our creations are actually astounding.
Our bodies, speech, and minds are actually astounding.
The three times are actually astounding.
The three existences are actually astounding.
There is nothing higher than the three realms.
This is Chapter Twenty: The Mandala of Our Supreme Secret Is Unsurpassed.
 TEACHINGS ON THE BLISS
OF THIS SUPREME SECRET
This chapter teaches the great bliss of this supreme secret.
O Mahāsattva,
There is no Buddhahood other than this,
So what is the cause for the sentience of sentient beings?
What are the actual dharmas and realities
That are not the Bodhicitta?
A mandala is actually a spoken mandala.
The perfect Buddhas bow to me!
The entire mandala bows to me!
A mandala is called a “mandala.”
The mandala of our wisdom abides in our hearts.
The supreme wisdom of the vajra
Is actually a teaching on my own union.
Everyone is a self-arisen mandala!
As for a dharma that is not included
Among the five mandalas,
Even the Buddha does not have one.
O Mahāsattva,
Every sentient being that is born
Is an unborn Buddha
Who has three very pure dominions.
This is the essence of the Bodhicitta.
It is spoken among the true secrets of the Buddhas.
For what reason would we speak about it
To a Buddha?
The Bodhicitta is the tooth of a razor.
It is like a sword that is sharpened with sesame oil.
The Bodhicitta is a road for everyone.
Unstained by faults,
It is like a lotus.
It is like a fire that blazes for an eon.
Regardless of what sorrows or sins we have committed
We will succeed in getting the unsurpassed reward
Of total liberation.
The Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
And all those who are unsurpassed
Live within my own Bodhicitta.
We are beyond all markings and exemplary features.
This is like a precious jewel
That is a wish-fulfilling gemstone.
My body is spontaneously realized
Without any contemplation.
I live alone
Within these three realms.
Aloneness is a level of brilliant majesty.
In the joy of the supreme secret
We all live alone with ourselves.
There are no abodes
That are not in the three realms.
We gather our minds to our realities alone.
This is Chapter Twenty-One: Teachings on the Bliss of this Supreme Secret.
 THE ASTOUNDING HOLINESS
OF THIS HOLY SECRET
This chapter teaches our astounding view.
O Friends,
The Bodhicitta is real Buddhahood.
One who is aware of what this means
In this way abides forever
In the bliss of yoga.
The abodes of hell are unsurpassed,
So when we are in the abodes of hell
We practice this way.
Everyone sees that malefactors,
Demons,
And the hosts of the Lord of the Dead
Are Buddhas.
In our substance,
We do not abide by any cause for hell.
There is no cause for hell.
Everyone is aware of this.
The rosaries of the burning tongues of hell
Are the Bodhicitta.
They lick away the pain.
For these reasons,
The Buddha is the only one who has no yoga.
He has no road.
He does not move.
There is no Buddha.
There is also no cause.
There is no enlightenment.
There are not even any names.
The level of true enlightenment
Does not exist either.
There are no sentient beings.
There is also no life.
There are no emotional problems.
There is also no samsara.
There is no happiness.
There are no rewards.
There is no hope.
There is also no fear.
There are no abodes.
There are also no nations.
There are no vehicles.
There is also no engagement.
There are no prayers.
There are also no projects.
There is no rejection.
There is also no acceptance.
There is no nation
That may be an abode for our sentience.
We have nothing to meditate on.
This is the Bodhicitta.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Astounding Holiness of this Holy Secret.
SEEKING NOTHING
This chapter teaches that our cause is beyond any search
And that not having any strife is the reason for our success.
Total awareness,
The Lord of the Dharma,
Gave instruction:
O Reality of All the Dharmas,
This is a great wonder!
I am the yoga of the perfection of knowledge.
When we lack the perfection of knowledge
We have no purpose for the nine perfections.
We also have no road to freedom.
We have no protection.
We do not get into yoga,
And we are without purpose.
Then he sat down in the samadhi of direct perception
And he spoke again:
Buddhists do not have any Dharma for the Tathagatas.
We also have nothing that is called:
“The dominion of the Dharma.”
Non-existence is itself a dominion of the Dharma.
We must be wise in every viewpoint.
We must destroy everything we have learned.
Whatever something may be
It is not something to learn.
One who has no training
Is learning about me.
Those who desire enlightenment
Have no enlightenment.
Our levels and life stories
Are far from supreme enlightenment.
Those who turn out to be far away
From this kind of reality
Will soon attain enlightenment.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Twenty-Three: Seeking Nothing.
 SAMAYA THAT ARE NOT TO BE PROTECTED
Then he entered the equanimity of the samadhi that is called:
“Mounting the tenth level,”
And again he spoke these words:
This Bodhicitta spontaneously perfects
The ten perfections.
It is astounding!
The astounding Bodhicitta
Is the perfection of all the Dharmas.
So it is a treasury that knows no exhaustion.
In unsurpassed enlightenment
This is true and perfect Buddhahood.
Through this perfection of knowledge
This is the correct and perfect Buddhahood
Of the Tathagatas.
This is the reality of all the Dharmas.
It is most amazing!
As for the Bodhicitta,
It is the attainment of omniscience.
It is knowledge.
As for Buddhahood,
It is the attainment of the wisdom of omniscience.
It is wisdom.
We totally enjoy the dharmas that come from our bodies.
We play in a Dharma in which
Our mind is the source of all things.
We play in a Dharma in which
Our speech is the source of all things.
We play in a Dharma in which
Everything comes from the Dharma.
As it is with clothing
From the land of Wārā ṇ āse
We take things to heart
Without ignoring their individuality.
Again he gave instruction on this sure intent:
Vajrasattva has no yidam deity.
We do not need to depend on any other lord of yogins.
Enlightenment is hard to find.
The Victorious One is my own embodiment.
The Buddhas of the three times
Have difficulty in understanding this.
Majestic self-awareness is hard to understand.
It is my own dominion.
Buddhahood does not exist anywhere else.
Again he spoke:
I have taken to heart all of the Dharmas
That are a higher wisdom concerning inequality and equality,
And the perfection of my greater virtues.
This is actually the astounding Bodhicitta
That is completely victorious over the three realms.
As for the eight samaya for the astounding Bodhicitta.
From the beginning we have not been born.
From the beginning we have not arisen.
From the beginning we have not stayed.
From the beginning we are empty.
We are absent.
We are level.
We are alone.
We live spontaneously.
These are the eight.
Of these,
By not being born we do not die.
We have not arisen from the start.
So we do not move.
We do not stay.
For we have passed into nirvana.
We are beyond taking things in
And holding onto them.
From the beginning we are empty.
We are absent.
So there are samaya.
We are all protected in our ability
By the protection of the one.
We are level.
We have no positions or preferences
Regarding our samaya.
So they are beyond counting.
Emptiness is sublime.
There is nothing else inside of it.
We are present forever as swastikas,
Alone in the samaya of the Atiyoga.
We do not change.
We live spontaneously.
We practice the twenty-five astounding samaya.
We take to heart the three things
That are not to be protected,
And through our hearts
There is nothing that we do not know.
We take everything to heart.
So we have nothing to protect.
There is nothing that is not protected by our speech.
So we have nothing to protect.
Through our bodies
Everything is spontaneously perfected.
We are not troubled about the pleasures of others.
So we have nothing to protect.
For these reasons
Our bodies, speech, and minds
Have nothing to protect.
Without our knowing it
Everything is whole.
No one has anything to protect.
We are finished with all our protecting.
Our five bodies are spontaneously perfected.
We have nothing to protect.
That is what he said.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Twenty-Four: Samaya That Are Not to Be
Protected.
TEACHING
ASTOUNDING UPADEŚA INSTRUCTIONS
This chapter teaches the supremely secret upadeśa instructions.
Then the Mahāsattva addressed him:
Blessed One,
This is a Dharma that we have not seen
Or been aware of up until now.
It is a great secret that is a great wonder,
One that I myself
And all those who have gone to their bliss
Have not seen in the past.
It does not harmonize with any of the Tathagata’s vehicles.
It is not the same as any of the Dharmas of the Secret Mantra.
It does not combine with any of the secrets.
It is a Dharma that has nothing in common
With any of the vehicles.
Any name for the Dharma and for reality
Does not exist,
With the exception of the Bodhicitta.
When there is no Buddha,
Sentient beings have no name.
With the exception of our playful delight
Our sorrow does not even have a name.
In our actual bodies, speech, and minds
We are turning the wheels of the Dharma of samsara,
But they are not spinning around.
Neither a reason for samsara
Nor a Dharma of samsara
Have ever existed.
With the exception of our joining on the level of enlightenment
Even a name for hell does not exist.
With the exception of omniscience
Our Dharma lacks even a name for ignorance.
Our Dharma takes an unerring purpose to heart.
Our heart is the precious jewel of the Bodhicitta.
We speak to perfect the upadeśa instructions
On the astounding secret that is our lamp,
And to realize the purpose of this astounding Bodhicitta
For the sake of all those who travel in bliss
Throughout the three times
And for ourselves.
So by what cause will we come to know this?
It was with these words that he addressed him.
Then the Blessed One Total Awareness,
Who is a Lord of the Dharma,
Gave instruction:
Mahāsattva,
Listen!
As for Blessed Buddhahood,
We know it through correctly assembling
Innumerable collections of immeasurable merit.
As for properly perfected Buddhahood,
We know it through taking to heart
The perfection of our immeasurable and correct methods.
As for the Blessed Buddha,
He is endowed with the power of prayer,
Both inequanimous and equanimous.
We know him by taking this to heart.
As for the Blessed Buddha,
He has accumulated immeasurable knowledge.
We know him when we take this to heart.
As for the Blessed Buddha,
His practices are immeasurable.
As for the Blessed Buddha,
He works to be a vessel
For immeasurable numbers of people.
As for the Blessed Buddha,
He works to teach vessels,
Just as they are.
He works for the sake of vessels,
Sentient beings just as they are.
He works for the sake of training sentient beings,
Just as they are.
He works for the sake of the beliefs of sentient beings,
Just as they are.
We know him by taking this to heart.
This is what he said after he had convened with the recipients.
Mahāsattva,
Speech is actually vajra sound.
When we are aware that Bodhicitta union
Involves our bodies, speech, and minds,
Without separating or differentiating them,
And without any duality,
The act of being aware is union.
As for our liberation,
The indivisibility of our bodies, speech, and minds
Is a vajra.
As for a vajra,
It does not stay anywhere
And it turns out that all the Dharmas
Do not abide anywhere either.
This is our meditation.
From the section on the hundred-thousand great secrets
That turn out to be the secret Tantras on the Magnificent Dharma
That is Astounding,
This is a teaching on the awareness of Vajrasattva.
Of all the secrets,
This is the supreme secret.
This is Chapter Twenty-Five: Teaching Astounding Upadeśa Instructions.
COVERING FOR OUR LOSSES
WITH THIS ASTOUNDING BODHICITTA
This chapter teaches an astounding intent,
An intent that will cover our loses from all of our problems.
Vajrasattva questioned our teacher:
How is it with this magnificent Dharma,
This astoundingly great compassion?
Our teacher Total Awareness,
The Lord of the Dharma,
Gave instruction:
Our empty awareness
Is a huge lightning bolt of sky iron.
It smashes the secret mountain of our problems
At the mountain’s peak.
An ocean of ambrosia melts and swirls.
We use the spaciousness of a hundred-thousand samadhis
So there are no losses here.
Again Vajrasattva questioned our teacher:
From whence was this Tantra of your Secret Heart proclaimed
All these eons
That are nine thirties of Mt. Merus
And are as many as the atoms there are in a field?
So did he address him.
Our teacher Total Awareness,
The Lord of the Dharma,
Gave instructions:
All the realms of the worlds,
Which are a great thousand of three thousands,
And all the intents that are astounding
Are one.
There may be nine thirties of Mt. Merus,
But by the meditation on this astounding Bodhicitta
Vajras are smashed to dust.
That is what he said.
This is why the body of the astounding Bodhicitta
Is called:
“Empty and sublime.”
Its speech is called:
“Wisdom playing in the sky.”
Its mind is called:
“Writing with a vajra chisel upon the board of the sky.”
Moreover,
An astounding body is said to be
A body that lives in an essential enlightenment.
An astounding speech is said to be
A reliable commentary on our contemplations
That comes from our dwelling in an essential enlightenment.
An astounding mind of inexhaustible intellect,
A wisdom that has the true sign of wish-fulfillment.
A mind that is wise is the best mind.
Moreover,
It says in the Tantra of the Truly Secret Heart:
In the body of the sky we are astounding.
By the speech of the sky a road is shown.
The mind of the sky is the best of minds.
The astounding sky is an excellent place!
That is what it says.
In this way,
After we have discussed the body, speech, and mind of the sky
There comes the discussion
On the body, speech, and mind of the earth.
The body of the earth is the nine thirties of Mt. Meru.
Eons that are as many as the atoms in a field
Will pass,
All of them astounding,
All of them will be earths that are astounding.
They are a great thousand of three thousands.
The worlds that are earths are six thirties of Mt. Merus.
There are a hundred-thousand Mt. Merus.
An eon for them
Is the measure of a single particle from a field.
The lifetimes of those who give rise to
A measure of this astounding Bodhicitta
Are not to be measured.
Mt. Meru,
The continents,
The basic ground,
And the things that appear and are possible:
Those who are born and move
Within what appears and what is possible
May all be eaten,
But they say: “Don’t eat me anymore!”
We must be like that.
This is Chapter Twenty-Six: Covering for Our Losses with this Astounding Bodhicitta.
 SPECIFICS ON LIGHT
Then a fire-light blazed out
From the body of the Astounding.
Our desire blazed in light.
Our hatred blazed in light.
Our pride blazed in light.
Our jealousy blazed in light.
Our stupidity blazed in light.
In this same way,
Our five heaps are actually our five bodies.
Those that blaze in light
Are the five bodies of the astounding Bodhicitta.
The light blazes out from I myself.
In this same way,
We blaze as light.
From out of our five consciousnesses
We blaze as light that comes from
Our eyes,
Our ears,
Our noses,
Our tongues,
And our sentience.
In this same way,
We also blaze as the light that comes from external objects.
We blaze as a light that comes from
The earth, water, fire, wind, and sky.
This light is our Bodhicitta,
Which is the most astounding of all.
A great light emerged from the light
Of the King of Self-Awareness.
It was a great light of wisdom,
And it shone.
All the realms of the worlds must be called:
“Light comes from my awareness and it shines.”
By doing this we overwhelm the black darkness of samsara
With light.
We have passed into nirvana from the start.
So this is called: “Buddhahood.”
These lights are lights that are astounding.
When we have the sorrows of our birth, aging, frailty, and death
The astounding Bodhicitta is a great bliss.
The best medicine
Is to seek the bliss of being without illness.
The three poisons leave behind the three worlds.
This is called: “Nirvana.”
Furthermore,
Those embodiments who lived
In their own essential enlightenment
Looked upon Vajrasattva.
Then he taught them this astounding Dharma
That is called: “The astounding Bodhicitta,”
And when he sat down
In a field and domain of great bliss
In the palace of Willow Leaves,
Which is not in any duality.
There were the noble Auditors,
The Lone Buddhas,
The Sutra Group of the Mahayana,
And all the rest.
Through the ocean of our sorrows,
Which are associated with our trails,
We travel from earth to earth,
And we unite.
We do not utter even the name of strife.
We teach the unsurpassed intent
Of the Secret Mantra of the Mahayana
So that the Buddhas from their five families
And those who travel through bliss
Throughout the three times
Contemplated a shining and clear circle of reality.
To do this,
Bodhisattva men and women did unite.
They united in their non-duality.
The intent for which there are no trials
Dries up the ocean of our sorrows,
Which we associate with our trials.
We teach that the majestic vision of our wisdom
Properly arises from out of our own self-awareness.
We are united in our purpose,
Which is our root.
On this topic,
There are three kinds of meanings for words:
The teaching that in few words there is much meaning,
The teaching that our rewards are physical, verbal, and mental,
And the teaching in words that are good poetry.
Of these,
The meaning of a word
Is also this astounding Bodhicitta!
From out of a dominion of bliss
That is the heart-contemplation of the Blessed One,
The glorious All Good One,
For the sake of those who travel in bliss
Throughout the three times,
From out of the mandala
That is the secret of his heart
He spread this over the organ of his tongue
And his explanation was upon the meaning of words.
As for the teaching that our rewards are physical, verbal, and mental,
We have existed from the start.
We live forever.
We do not change.
We are embodiments of merit.
We are manifest bodies.
We are inconceivable.
We are spontaneously realized.
So we are embodiments of perfect pleasure.
We have nothing to do or to seek.
We are embodiments who live in our essential enlightenment.
A gathering of bodies will appear
That will be embodiments of the reality of our wisdom.
Thus did it happen,
And there is more:
The greater virtues of mantras happen to be special.
When we delve in
They are embodiments of the dominion of the Dharma.
For those who travel in bliss
This is the embodiment of the Dharma.
It emits a light of wisdom.
In this way,
Light embodies the dominion of the Dharma
For the great thousand of three thousands,
And the light of our wisdom
Encompasses all the realms of the world,
With none excepted.
So it is described to be a great emptiness.
As for the astounding light of Buddhahood,
It is inconceivable.
This is the light of our wisdom.
This makes us see the astounding Bodhicitta.
It is called: “Astounding Light.”
The Blessed One,
The glorious Vajrasattva
Again questioned Total Awareness,
The Lord of the Dharma:
How is it that light emerges
From out of the body of the Dharma
And from out of our wisdom?
So did he address him.
The Buddha spoke:
In this way we teach
That the worlds that are in the ten directions
When made into minute atoms
Are the embodiments of the Dharma.
The astounding Bodhicitta
Is the light of wisdom
For the body of the Dharma,
And just that.
In the same way,
The light of our wisdom
Is also inconceivable.
Heaps of light shine
Throughout the realms of the sky
For the three kinds of existence.
To the extent of the brilliant diffusion
Of the fields that are our eon
There is a light of compassion for all sentient beings:
Those who play and do not play,
Those who move and do not move.
Thus did he give instruction.
The lights of our intellects,
Our wisdom,
And our awareness
Are also astounding.
The lights from Buddhas
That are as many as that
Arise,
But that is not much.
The arising of the light
Of the wisdom of our self-awareness
Is most considerable.
For these reasons,
This is not something that is like the sky,
Or the sun,
Or the moon.
We do not hold this light to be
Like anything else.
Thus did he give instruction.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Twenty-Seven: Specifics on Light.
 TEACHING THE FIVE ROADS OF SAMSARA
This chapter teaches the five roads of samsara.
Then Vajrasattva asked:
What are the five roads of samsara?
Our teacher Total Awareness,
The Lord of the Dharma,
Gave instruction:
We must use our desire to acquire things.
We must use our hatred to kill.
We must use our jealousy to blot things out.
We must use our pride to strike.
Our stupidity teaches us the road to the Dharma.
Desire, hatred, stupidity, pride, and jealousy:
All these things are ignorance,
Which is the root of the three poisons.
When we are aware,
They are the road to enlightenment.
We will achieve wealth, glory, and desirelessness.
A vajra appears to be a Tathagata.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Twenty-Eight: Teaching the Five Roads of
Samsara.
 THE FIVE ROADS OF SAMSARA
ARE ACTUALLY THE FIVE FAMILIES
AND HAVE BEEN THE DOMINION
OF THE FIVE MOTHERS
FROM THE START,
ALONG WITH WHAT IT MEANS
THAT WE REMAIN
This chapter teaches that the five roads of samsara
Are actually the five families
And are the dominion of the five mothers.
Again Vajrasattva mounted
The beginning of the chapter on the word,
And he presented his question.
So Total Awareness,
Our teacher,
The Lord of the Dharma
Gave instruction:
To take what is not given is the earth.
To play with impurity is the water.
To speak in lies is the wind.
To act to kill is fire.
I teach that we are all within the dominion of the sky.
Thus did he give instruction.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Twenty-Nine, which teaches that the five
roads of samsara are actually the five families and have been the dominion of the five
mothers from the start, along with what it means that we remain.
TEACHING THAT
THE CAUSES AND REWARDS OF SAMSARA
ARE ACTUALLY A PURE REALM
This chapter prophesies that we will abide
In a field of purity
In which our causes and rewards have been uncontrived from the start,
And that these are actually the causes and rewards of samsara.
We cut through the roots of the three poisons.
So any causes or rewards in the three realms of samsara
Do not exist.
We have no lives.
The one who works to kill
Is a Heruka.
We have no attachments and we do not hold on.
So we have no fetters.
These are the eight great charnel grounds.
We do not engage.
We do not appear.
We have no objective.
Our senses are empty.
We do not penetrate doors,
Whether internal or external.
We are actually inside of a great seal.
We have no body, speech, or mind.
This is the best of things that are great.
We are free from mantras and mudras.
So we do not fail.
We are perfected in the majesty of our greatness.
This is astounding.
Thus did Total Awareness.
The Lord of the Dharma,
Give instruction.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty: Teaching that the Causes and
Rewards of Samsara Are Actually a Pure Realm.
TEACHING THAT
THERE ARE NO MIDDLES OR EXTREMES
TO ANY OF THE DHARMAS
This chapter teaches that all the Dharmas of samsara and of nirvana
Are a dominion of total purity.
Our teacher,
The Blessed Buddha,
Saw a great bliss
In which all the Dharmas of nirvana
Dwell within a dominion that is totally pure.
Then he understood the meaning of non-duality,
And he took it to heart.
For living beings,
The samsara that is a reality
Is actually nirvana.
Once we understand
The meaning of non-duality
We are finished.
So we sit in the way of the unmoving.
We teach that the meaning of the astounding Bodhicitta
Has no middle or extremes.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-One: Teaching that There Are No
Middles or Extremes to Any of the Dharmas.
 ALL THE YOGAS ARE SUBSUMED
INTO THE ATIYOGA
This chapter teaches that
The reality of the Bodhicitta
Has been present from the primordial
In the true nature of our majestic wisdom.
Moreover,
The natural living
That is the reality of our great enlightenment
Is such that our dominion and our wisdom
Are neither joined nor separated.
We teach that the intent of all the yogas
May be condensed into the Atiyoga.
As for the intent of the Atiyoga,
We teach that it is subsumed within the astounding Bodhicitta.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Two: All the Yogas Are Subsumed
into the Atiyoga.
 NO TRANSFER NO CHANGE
This chapter teaches that all dharmas
Have been Buddhas from the beginning.
The dominion of nirvana
Is a king we do not visualize.
He sits there without any high or low
And without any partiality,
But with the great compassion of his wisdom
He teaches us that many kinds of his manifestations
Will be created no matter what.
As for the teaching that we are all pure,
We all are united in a field of purity.
It is a teaching that we are all liberated
Into a dominion of purity,
And so we sit.
This is actually beyond the three realms.
We do not transfer.
We do not change.
We do not spin.
We are precious jewels that are not still.
We live within the experience of the All Good.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Three: No Transfer No Change.
 TEACHINGS THAT GO BEYOND
WORDS AND LETTERS
This chapter teaches us how we arose
Within a river of great bliss
And how we play with the light from our bodies
And the rays from our speech.
In the space of the great bliss of the Bodhicitta
From out of the light from his body
And the rays from his speech,
Total Awareness,
The King of the Dharma,
Was living without duality
With a mighty woman
Who he desired as a wife,
And the totality of the apparent world
Transformed into an experience of great compassion.
So once again he taught
That the dharmas of samsara and everything in the world
Are actually our enlightenment.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Four: Teachings that Go Beyond
Words and Letters.
 TEACHING THAT
OUR BODIES AND OUR WISDOM
ARE OUR REALITIES
This chapter teaches that all Dharmas
Are from the primordial nirvana.
Moreover,
Bodhicitta nirvana has three meanings.
In the dominion where we have been Buddhas from the beginning
The king that we do not visualize
Harbors no understandings.
His great compassion transforms into wisdom,
And he sits.
In the wisdom of the clear knowledge
Of the three existences in a single moment
He shines without hindrance.
He is pure,
And the knowledge of his purity
Turns out to be a container and contents
That are everything.
In this way he turns out to be
The heart-essence of us all.
He is the reality of our body and our wisdom.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Five: Teaching that Our Bodies and
Our Wisdom Are Our Realities.
TEACHING THE INTENDED NEED
FOR THE UPADEŚA INSTRUCTIONS
This chapter teaches us the intended need
For the astounding Bodhicitta.
To get our heads into this astounding Bodhicitta
We teach it using the eight topics on our intended need.
We teach that the body, speech, and mind
That are our rewards
Are spontaneously realized.
You may ask what they are.
Teaching the true nature of the mind of the Bodhicitta,
Teaching the encompassing pervasion of the Bodhicitta,
Teaching the definition of the Bodhicitta,
Teaching the meaning of causes and results for the Bodhicitta,
Teaching that magnificent nirvana is the Bodhicitta,
Teaching that the true and unchanging spirit
Of the wisdom of great emptiness is the Bodhicitta,
Teaching that in the wisdom of great bliss
We have been Buddhas from the beginning,
For we are swastikas through a great eternity,
And this is the Bodhicitta.
The Bodhicitta never reaches any ending.
These are the eight.
Moreover,
If we divide them,
There are two topics
To the teaching on the true nature of the Bodhicitta.
There is the teaching that all the Dharmas
That appear and that are possible
Are from the beginning uncontrived,
And there is the teaching that when we understand
And are aware in this way
We will have nowhere else to seek our reward
Other than this.
On the teaching of the definition of the Bodhicitta
There are in turn three topics.
Regarding the transmission that is sure
And the upadeśa instructions that are secret,
We teach that they are the uncomplicated Bodhicitta.
This is beyond analogies and words.
So we teach that this is beyond the objects
That we take in and hold onto.
We teach that there is nowhere else in the world
For us to seek,
With the exception of the Dharma of the Bodhicitta.
The teaching on the topic of the causes and rewards for the Bodhicitta
Has four parts:
The teaching that the cause for the origin of all things,
Is the dominion of our mother,
The All Good Woman.
In a circle of spacious space
The reward of the Bodhicitta
Arises as the All Good One.
The teaching on our awareness of non-conceptual wisdom
Arises from out of ourselves.
The teaching that even through the experience
Of a Dharma that is beyond birth and ending
There will be a variety of differences
Among the compassionate who are skilled in methods.
The teaching that our heaps,
Domains,
And generative forces
Are divine bodies,
That we meditate on as the Mahamudra,
So that our awareness of wisdom,
Which is a heart-essence that is not compounded
Throughout the three times,
Arises in the center of our citta.
The teaching that the Bodhicitta
Seems to never reach any end
Also has five topics:
The teaching that by brilliant meditation
On methods and knowledge
We will have the physical colors
Of the Buddhas of the five families
And their way of sitting.
The teaching that we shine in our dominion and our wisdom:
We are beyond having any substance to our bodies.
We give up the samadhis of the families
And we are all mandalas.
We are mandalas of light.
The teaching that by understanding knowledge
And the things that we must know
We will take the contemplations of the Buddhas to heart,
Without mixing them up.
The teaching that we encompass everything,
Like the sky,
And that we have no hopes or fears,
Nor any dharma of samsara.
The teaching that the reward for our understanding
Is that our self-awareness is the Bodhicitta,
Which does not change through the three times.
The teaching that the Bodhicitta
Is a great and encompassing pervasion
Also has six topics:
The teaching that when we understand what it means
To be in a mandala of supreme secrecy
We will travel through the dominion of Narahasa.
The teaching that what it means
To be without joining or separation
Is to have no job or quest.
The teaching that we divide up the broth of the transmission
Then we travel through the dominion
Of the upadeśa instructions.
The teaching that we abide by the vows of our samaya
And we attain rewards for our bodies, speech, and minds.
The teaching that the treasure
That is at the hearts of all the Victorious Ones
Is the astounding Bodhicitta.
The teaching on how it is
With all the dharmas of cause and result.
Teaching that a miracle has occurred
Which is that our sentience is born
From out of the unborn.
The teaching that the Bodhicitta is nirvana
Also has three topics:
The teaching that we have been Buddhas
From the beginning.
The king of non-visualization
Lives within the dominion of nirvana
Without any partiality,
Yet there is the way the manifestations of great compassion
Enact things.
The teaching that we have all been liberated
Into a pure realm,
And it is by uniting within the womb of our consort
That there is a great transcendence of the three realms.
The teaching that we do not transfer,
We do not change,
We do not spin,
And we are not still.
We do not move away from the experience
Of the precious sentience of the All Good One.
The finality of the great emptiness of the Bodhicitta
Also has two topics:
The teaching that in the space of our bliss
We dwell within the light from our bodies
And that we play within the rays of our speech.
The teaching that All Awareness,
The King of the Dharma,
Is not in any duality with the mighty woman of desire
Who is his consort.
The teaching that the wisdom of the Bodhicitta
Is primordial Buddhahood,
As is the eternal swastika,
Also has seven topics:
The teaching that our ten fields
Are also fields for the Buddhas.
The teaching that everything that appears and is possible
Is in the experience of great compassion.
The teaching that all the dharmas of samsara
Are the Bodhicitta.
The teaching that the highest summit
Of all the vehicles
Is the Atiyoga.
The teaching that all the dharmas of cause and result
Are gathered into the Bodhicitta.
The teaching that we are beyond the fields of practice
That are words and letters.
The teaching that we use union and liberation
To cut through the roots of birth and death
So that the circle that brings us all together
Is beyond the extremes of permanence and annihilation.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Six: Teaching the Intended Need for
the Upadeśa Instructions.
.
TEACHING THE DEFINITIONS
This chapter teaches the definition of the astounding Bodhicitta.
Moreover,
Clean means that we are primordially cleansed
Of both obstructions and emotional problems.
This is like putting a crystal egg into the palm of your hand.
When we know that the three times,
The three realms,
And the three existences
Are in a single moment,
And we do not hesitate,
There will be a clarity
That is both substantial and pure.
The meaning of this is definite.
As for our fullness,
It is like sesame seeds being pervaded by oil.
This will be at the core of us all.
This reality of spontaneous presence
Is the heart-essence of us all.
When something is a place of origin
For our body and our wisdom
We call it a fullness.
As for our sentience,
It turns out to be a wisdom that understands.
So from out of the dominion
That is the secret basis for all things
We have an intent that is not corrupt,
Without looking for it.
This is a jewel that is most precious.
It is clear in its true nature
And in its color,
Our sentience is unborn.
As for our happiness,
The three times are instantaneously perfect.
The dominion of the Dharma is entirely pure.
We enter into an equanimity
That is a great delight.
This is our happiness.
As for our greatness,
This is not a contrivance made by any of our detractors.
Like the sky,
It does not look for any cause.
It is primordially pure.
This is not connected to any conditions.
From the beginning we have been present.
We do not depend on any implements or titles.
Nothing is final in the above.
On our sentience
There are also three topics:
We engage in all things,
This is the character of our thinking minds.
It is the wisdom of our awareness.
Our bodies
Are also three topics:
The sky that is a spacious space,
The body that is happy with everything,
And the vajra Bodhicitta.
On our speech
There are also three:
Words that are sure,
Things that must be said,
And elaboration into all things.
This astounding Bodhicitta
Brings the three realms under its control.
It holds on to all of our lives.
This is why we melt into the oceanic dominion
Of our mother,
The bhaga of the All-Good Woman.
Our bodies, speech, and minds
Are spontaneously realized.
We leave behind our works and quests.
We have become self-empowered
As kings of awareness.
We offer a great vision of wisdom
To ourselves.
This is why we are gathered
Into the great bliss
Of the All Good One’s sky.
Then from out of our non-duality
We teach in whatever color we may be
The true nature that goes beyond
The exemplifications in words and letters
Of our unmistaken purpose,
Which is that our precious sentience is unborn.
In the dominion of the unchanging,
In the spacious space of great bliss,
We sit in our swastika bodies
For a great eternity.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Seven: Teaching the Definitions.
 THE VIRTUES OF THE ASTOUNDING
AND PROPHECY ON MEDITATION
This chapter teaches the virtues of this astounding Bodhicitta.
We are teaching on what it means
To meditate on the Bodhicitta.
In the scriptures we find:
A person who has found a precious jewel
In the three realms. . .
This does appear.
As an analogy,
The understanding of the meaning of the astounding Bodhicitta
Resembles how a mountain of agate and jewels for trinkets
May be a great wealth,
But by the light of just one speck of vaidurya
This mountain will be wrapped up
Until this mountain of jewels is blue vaidurya.
In a similar way,
When the sublime wisdom of an empty mind,
Which is the Bodhicitta,
Plays within the sky,
It is astounding.
Even though we are wrapped up in the three realms
We see precious jewels.
The three kinds of existence
Also turn out to be precious jewels.
This is like where it also states
That in the same way
A most precious wish-fulfilling jewel
May arise as anything at all.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Virtues of the Astounding
and Prophecy on Meditation.
TEACHING THE UPADEŚA INSTRUCTIONS
FOR THE BODHICITTA
This chapter teaches the upadeśa instructions for the Bodhicitta.
Through our cleansing
All things are completely pure.
Even though we are finished with our work
In the dominion of all our purposes
We are one.
This is not in some dominion
That we have not sought out.
So we are full.
A great circle encompasses us all.
We are one.
Our minds shine in the experience
Of the All Good One.
We are indivisible.
We are happy.
We are beyond all causes and conditions.
We do not depend on anyone else.
We are great.
We do not contemplate any strife
That appears to be a hardship.
We have no work to do.
So we are clean.
We are beyond any unmoving memories
Of an experience that we do not imagine.
So we are full.
In the samadhi of the unborn
At the moment when we are not distracted by our thoughts
We are sentient.
For putting our memories into their natural state
We have no other companion.
So we are happy.
We do not depend on any empowerment or siddhi
Of any kind.
We do not need to use a path for our progress.
Our contemplations are spontaneously realized.
So we are great.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Thirty-Nine: Teaching the Upadeśa
Instructions for the Bodhicitta.
TEACHING THE UPADEŚA INSTRUCTIONS
THAT WERE SPOKEN BY THE KING
OF THIS TRANSMISSION
Now this chapter teaches the students of those good recipients
Who are students
The validations for the requirement that we study.
As for the Bodhicitta,
It is also the All Good one.
It is also the five families:
Vajrasattva and the rest.
It is also the mothers of the families.
It is also the male and female Bodhisattvas.
It is also our body, speech, and mind.
It is the five great elements that are our cause.
It is also our cause.
It is also our reward.
It is also a vajra.
It is also wisdom.
It is also reality.
It is also the dominion of the Dharma.
It is also the great bliss of the Dharma Body.
It is also a retainer for the Dharma.
It is also samsara.
It is also nirvana.
It is also non-dual.
It is also the result of a cause.
It is also Vairochana.
It is also a wisdom that is proper.
It is also the ten kinds of heroes.
This is why Vajrasattva
Is the All Good One in his variety.
Unborn thusness is the sky,
The mother of the Victorious Ones.
The inseparability of male and female
Is our body, speech, and mind.
This is Chapter Forty: Teaching the Upadeśa Instructions that Were Spoken by the King of
This Transmission.
DO NOT TEACH STUDENTS
WHO ARE BAD RECIPIENTS
This chapter teaches us about students who are amazing
And the benefits and problems there may be for our recipients.
Moreover,
It states in the scripture:
Those who get into inferior vehicles,
Those who use their character
To humiliate the students who are their subjects,
Those who are conceited due to the smallness of their learning,
Those who use corrupt words to go wild,
Those with bad merchandise,
Those with little faith:
These men of great haughtiness
Who keep to their own positions,
Who do not bleed even when they are cut,
Who are ensnared in their avarice:
We do not explain the meaning of the astounding to them.
Even if we do explain it,
It will not liberate the flow of their intellects.
So do not explain this Atiyoga,
Which is an unsurpassed royal vehicle,
A transmission of perfection.
From the Astounding Bodhicitta, this is Chapter Forty-One: Do Not Teach Students Who
Are Bad Recipients.
THE EXTRAORDINARY VIRTUE THERE IS
IN TEACHING STUDENTS
WHO ARE GOOD RECIPIENTS
Now this chapter teaches the validation
Which we use to train students who are good recipients
Using eight topics
That we do not hold in common
With those of the Middle Way.
Moreover,
The scripture states:
An elephant carries a load
That is the measure of a vehicle.
In his strength he is not the same
As the common animals.
The power of the force is not a common thing.
When the lions of the snow let out their melodies
Their melodies are not the same as those of the commoners
Who are attached to their groups.
Their melodious speech is also not common.
When we look at the waves of the majestic ocean
The waves are not the same as common ripples.
Their rivers of water are also not ordinary.
If we go to the summit of Mt. Meru
Our height is not the same
As on common mountain ranges.
This is the king of summits.
It is also not common.
If we look at the light
From the sun and moon
When the sky is clear,
The light is not the same
As the common planets and stars.
This light is not common in any way.
When we see a great garuda
Cut through the stratosphere
His strength is not the same as the common birds.
The strength of our force here
Is also not common.
When we see the depth of the Vajrayana
The depth is not the same as the other common vehicles.
The measure of the depth of this is also not common.
The wise who have studied the lineage of their knowledge
And Auditors whose intellectual capacity is small:
The purposes of these two are not the same
With regard to the welfare of living beings.
This supreme purpose is also not common.
That is what he said.
From the Great and Astounding Dharma, this is Chapter Forty-Two: The Extraordinary
Virtue there Is in Teaching Students Who Are Good Recipients.
It is finished.
The Indian preceptor Śrī Singhaha
And the Tibetan translator Vairochana
Translated this.
THE WHEEL OF PRECIOUS JEWELS
In the Indian language:
Ratna Cakra Nama Tantra
In the Tibetan language:
Rin po che ‘khor lo zhe bya ba’i rgyud
In the English language:
The Wheel of Precious Jewels Tantra
 THE BASIC SCENE
I bow to the magnificent Lord of Secrets.
Teaching, teacher, audience, place, and time:
The magnificent Lord of Secrets
Used these five words of great astonishment
To give instruction to Sattvavajra
And everyone else.
Buddhas and sentient beings have one cause,
But the external and internal vessel and contents
Appear to be dualities.
By one thing we experience the results of six.
We are deluded by the strength there is
In not carrying any title.
Our jewel wanders through the abodes of samsara.
We are deluded about forms:
The visible and the invisible.
That is what he said.
Then Sattvavajra addressed him again:
Buddhas and sentient beings have one base
So the appearance of duality is a characteristic of our knowledge.
Is there unity or are they different?
That is what he asked.
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
From out of our general ground
Which we do not give a name to
There is a duality of appearances:
The pure and the impure.
Their characteristics certainly do appear to be dual,
But when we do not give them names
Our general ground is one.
It is not one.
It is also not dual.
As an analogy,
Camphor is a medicine and a poison.
Just so,
It is not poison
But it is not exclusively a medicine.
The general ground for medicinal and poisonous camphor
Is one.
Depending on the conditions it meets with
It is a medicine or a poison.
From out of our general ground,
Which we give no name to,
There arise two kinds of conceptions:
There are the conceptions of our ignorant delusions
And the conceptions of our aware wisdom.
They both arise from our general ground.
We separate our delusions: Good and bad,
And there appears to be a duality
Between understanding and not understanding.
The Lord of Secrets is primordially a Buddha.
Once we understand
We embody the Buddha’s Dharma.
Once we meditate
We embody the Buddha’s pleasure.
Once we have heart
We embody the Buddha’s manifestation.
The three bodies appear to be
A pure field and domain.
Misunderstandings are delusional knowledges.
From out of the little house of light
That is the basis for all things
There come the delusions that are our ignorance.
An ideation of miniscule memories arises.
We use the memories in our thinking minds
To work on our struggles.
Happy thoughts and unhappy thoughts arise.
It is through the experience of happy thoughts
That we give birth to an attached attitude
About the things we cannot part from.
Our unhappiness arises as an attitude of equanimity.
With unhappy thoughts
We work on our struggles.
We give birth to a mindfulness that thinks: “I am.”
We will long endure our attitudes about happiness and sorrow.
Clear ideas and unclear ideas will both arise.
Our thinking minds give birth to ideas
About the clear and the unclear.
Our body of light
And the body of our awareness
Arise as a duality.
Our awareness has a heart-essence that is empty.
The origin of all things
Is a treasure of precious jewels.
The pleasure of our many desires
Will never run out or end.
Everything is a basis
For the arising of rewards.
Majestic Lord of Secrets,
I have done this.
Sattvavajra,
Listen well!
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter One: The Basic Scene.
TEACHING THE WAYS OF OUR DELUSION
Following these words of solicitation
Sattvavajra again asked
About the true nature of the magnificent Lord of Secrets:
The general ground that is the basis of all things
Is one,
But it arises through two kinds of doorways:
It was created,
Or it happened.
If it was created
It would actually be a compounded entity.
Our efforts to succeed would also be meaningless.
There are characteristics of it having happened,
So did it happen out of ourselves,
Or did it happen out of others?
That is what he asked.
The magnificent Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
We do not attribute the true nature of pure camphor
To be named a medicine or a poison,
But medicine and poison appear to be two things.
Just so,
The general ground that is the basis of all things
Is one,
But it forcefully arises through two kinds of doorway.
We work to turn back
Anything that was born in the past.
The doorway of awareness does not arise
From out of the doorway of delusion and ignorance.
The basis of all things appears in the form of light.
We give birth to an attitude of desire for this light.
We are forcefully deluded into being gods in the realm of desire.
We take this light to be something that is properly real.
So we are forcefully deluded into being gods of the realm of form.
We do not know the true nature of light.
We give birth to an assumption that there is nothing at all.
So we are forcefully deluded into the realms of the formless.
A force that is an awareness of light is born.
We find our resolve in the force.
Understanding dawns on us.
We dwell on our awareness for a long time.
We succeed.
We are attached to the light
And we give birth to hatred.
We are forcefully deluded
While in the abodes of hell.
We are attached to the light.
We cannot be without it.
We are forcefully deluded
While in the abodes of the hungry ghosts.
We do not know anything.
Meanings are not clear.
We are forcefully deluded
While among the animals.
The shapes of the light may be good or bad.
We give birth to jealousy.
We are forcefully deluded
While among the humans.
We give birth to the attitude
That there is no one but me.
So we are forcefully deluded
While among the asuras.
Our roots and our ignorance are two things,
So we create a vessel for the visible and the invisible.
We use the analogy
That all the demons are pure
To teach.
As for our base,
It is the consciousness that is the base of all things.
Through our attachments
We are deluded into bodies of hatred.
Through our desire
We are deluded into being lusty meat.
The stupid arise in the bodies of carnivores.
Truths and lies arise in a variety of forms.
The ignorance that is born synchronously
Arises as an idea,
Which is an ignorance that labels everything.
Our two kinds of thinking mind
We hold to be the duality of external and internal.
We engage in objectives.
We gather our obstructions.
We look at origins and applications
As being external and internal.
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Two: Teaching the Ways
of Our Delusion.
 CUTTING THROUGH
THE BASE OF OUR DELUSIONS
AT THE ROOT
After being addressed with these words
Sattvavajra again asked:
Using what analogy of similarity
Will you exemplify the characteristics
Of the base and of delusion?
What is the difference between our base and our delusion?
How are we to cut through the bases of our delusions
At the root?
After he heard these words that had been addressed to him
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave his answer:
Our base is the consciousness that is the basis of all things.
Delusion is an attitude of seeking for everything.
Our base has existed from the start.
Delusions are superficial ideas in our minds.
Our base is the continuum of our awareness.
Delusion appears to be a segmented conceptualization.
One for whom the line of his visualization is a high basis
Will use the analogy of a water snake being tricked into a fire
To exemplify this.
We are beyond contrivance and corruption,
Growth and reduction,
Causes and conditions.
We transit, change, work, and seek.
There is no change in this.
We are insubstantial, uncontrived, and spontaneously realized.
There is nothing that does not depend on
Superficial dharmas.
A purpose that is not contrived, not corrupt, and is not to be sought
Is specifically liberated from attitudes
That are associated with grasping.
The consciousness that is the basis for all things
Is the base of our own ignorance.
This is the ignorance we live together with.
It is the basis of the consciousness of our thinking minds.
It is a knowledge of thoughts that change.
It is a base for the minds of those who have emotional problems.
The knowledge that emotional problems change
Is the basis for the consciousness of the five doors.
Looking outward,
Looking inward:
These are two perspectives.
We cut through our delusions at base
So that they are no more.
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Three: Cutting Through
the Base of Our Delusions at the Root.
A METHOD FOR CLARIFYING DELUSION
After being addressed with these words
Sattvavajra again asked:
Is there or is there not
A dharma that distinguishes
The clarification of our own delusion
And the methods there are for turning it back?
After he had heard these words that were addressed to him
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
When delusions are clarified
They are obviously clear.
When delusions are turned back
They are turned back from their cause.
At times when our five doors
Are clear in their objects
The characteristics of their appearance
Are turned back by our knowledge.
At times when it is clear
That there are five kinds of emotional problems
We turn back our superficial delusions
With our knowledge.
At times when we are looking inside of our minds
We turn back the grasping of our intellects
With our knowledge.
We are devoured by our own doubts
About a Dharma that is true.
We actually cling to Dharmas that are not true.
At the time we give birth to
A knowledge of truth and lies
When we are deluded in our own ignorance
We use our knowledge to turn back.
In times that are unclear,
When we do not understand anything,
Instructions for our spirits will arrive,
So we will turn around.
Things will appear,
But when we do not hinder or encourage them
Our delusions about the external are burnt up.
Things become clear,
But we do not engage in any objective
So our delusions about our support are burnt up.
When we do not give birth to any clinging at a self within us
Our delusions about the narrow road are burnt up.
When our understanding does not accept
Any external or internal
The delusions of our intellects are burnt up.
When we find confidence in an objective that is proper
And we do not give birth to any grasping or doubt
The delusions of our ignorance are burnt up.
Our awareness has a heart-essence of emptiness
At the moment we recognize this heart-essence
Our delusions about strife and development are burnt up.
When we are ploughing through the rites of the Tantras
Our delusional attachments and cravings are burnt up.
When our rival turns out to be space
Our delusions about conditions are burnt up.
When our wisdom turns out to be space
Our delusional misunderstandings are burnt up.
When the river of our wisdom has no dam
Our delusions about trifles are burnt up.
Our ideas are not separate from our persons.
We do not abandon any of our delusions.
They are burnt up.
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Four: A Method for
Clarifying Delusion.
 TEACHING A VIEWPOINT
THAT DOES NOT TURN AWAY FROM DELUSION
After he had been addressed with these words
Sattvavajra again asked:
Does there or does there not exist
Any taking into our experience of the meaning of our view
Once our delusions have burnt up?
After hearing these words that had been addressed to him
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
Once we turn back our delusions
There is the arising of wisdom.
If our knowledge of samsara does not burn
We will not recognize our own wisdom.
If we do not leave behind
The intellect that makes us think
We will not be able to give rise to
Any sure knowledge in our own spirits.
This being so,
The wisdom that has no base or root
That is called: “The method for turning back delusion”
Is a view that is naturally pure.
Being without work,
We have nothing to hold onto.
This is a viewpoint
That is an uncorrupt freshness.
As for wisdom that is not shadowed by delusion,
It is a viewpoint of resolved understanding.
Do not slice!
Do not boil!
Do not stay!
This is a viewpoint
Where there is no being or non-being.
When we forcefully liberate
Dharmas that are complicated
That is a viewpoint with a great freedom from positions.
When we do not move into the mouth
Of our conditional ideas
Our viewpoint is carried into a resolve.
When we do not see any difference
Between high and low
That is the viewpoint of the solitary circle.
When we do not give birth to good and bad
Nor take things up
Nor put things down
That is the sunset on all our delusional ideas.
When we do not give birth to a knowledge that makes us think
We are liberated from the dharmas of the intellect.
When we do not eat the malice in our minds
An understanding will arise from within.
When our visions are not damaged by our objectives
We cut through our exaggerations about external things.
When we are convinced about a purpose that is true
We cut through our exaggerations about internal things.
If a person comes forth who understands sorrow
He will shift into the abode of the view.
If a person is born who understands virtue and evil
Great bliss will hold him by his core.
If a person is born who understands how to turn back the changes,
He will put his awareness into order.
If a person is born who understands what delusion is
He will put things into order with confidence.
When we do not hope for dharmas
That are causes and conditions
We arrive at the core of our self-origination.
When we have perfected the force of our awareness
We will arrive at the core of our power.
When we do not move into some distorted emptiness
We arrive at the core of our awareness.
When a person is born who takes in and holds onto
His awareness
He will put emptiness into a system.
When a person is born
Who separates awareness and emptiness
He will put non-duality into a system.
When a person is born who understands
Clarity and obfuscation
He will arrive at the core of his own wisdom.
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Five: Teaching a
Viewpoint that Does Not Turn away from Delusion.
 TEACHING THE TEACHINGS
After he had been addressed with these words
Sattvavajra again asked:
When we understand the view
Does there or does there not exist
Any meaningful meditation
That we may take into our experience?
After he heard these words that were addressed to him
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
Views and meditations are not to be boiled.
Our meditation is to view and to abide.
When something like meditation arises,
That is our view.
Our views and practices have been liberated
From the problems there are with depression.
The abode of our meditation has been liberated
From the problems there are with wildness.
This liberation from the problems there are
With depression and wildness
Has a true nature in which we meditate on non-meditation.
This is a mediation in which we abide on non-abiding.
We do not search.
This is our personal meditation.
We do not relax.
We do not obscure.
We do not strive.
We have non-meditation
As the heart-essence of our purpose.
This is not an abode that we will strive for or project.
The substance of our meditation
Is that we do not boil.
We live naturally,
Without contrivance,
Just as we are.
Once we have been liberated
From the river of our reversion
We will have a river of purpose.
We will have a river of purpose
That is a self-abiding dhyāna meditation.
We do not look for anything else.
We live naturally.
Living in a river of samadhi is supreme!
Samadhi is a Dharma that we take into our experience.
Thusness in all its forms
Abides in a samadhi that has no origin or application.
When we dam the river of reversion
The river of this will shine.
We overcome the poisons of disease and of healing.
We are endowed with the power of thusness.
All the Buddhas of the three times
Dwell primarily on this samadhi.
From anywhere to wherever we do not separate.
Once we do not exist how would we part?
Our actual liberation from external and internal delusions
Is already accomplished.
When we do not separate from this
We will have purpose.
We are liberated from our delusional cravings.
We have found certitude in thusness.
It is not in anything else.
We must meditate on a dhyāna meditation
Without visualizing anything.
As for the wisdom that dwells within us,
It is not a field of practice for the critical.
It is subtle and peaceful.
There is nothing to label.
We work to overcome misery and disease.
Samadhi is the king of medicines.
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Six: Teaching the
Teachings.
 CUTTING THROUGH THE MEMBRANE
OF DEVIANCE AND OBSTRUCTION
After he had been addressed with these words
Sattvavajra again asked:
When we do not boil our views and meditations
How will we cut through the membranes
Of deviation and obstruction?
After hearing these words
That were addressed to him
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
After the moment that we understand
The meaning that is clear,
And there are no dharmas of delusion,
Deviation,
Or obstruction
What would we engage in,
Using conditional abodes for our awareness?
After he had spoken these words
Sattvavajra again asked:
It is certainly true
That when we understand
We have no deviation or obstruction,
But there are people who do not understand this,
So how do these grounds for deviation and obstruction come about?
After hearing these words that were addressed to him
The majestic Lord of Secrets gave an answer:
For people who do not understand this
I teach that there are both grounds for deviance and obstructions.
To go through the wrong door
Is a ground for deviation.
Not understanding the purpose of our abode
Is an obstruction.
To wander through the five doors is delusion.
When the high travel among the low
The doorway is wrong.
I call this a “ground for deviation.”
The two obstructions are like the eyes of a bird.
I explain that what is not obstructed is pure.
Those whose vehicles are obstructed
Because they fade and they deviate,
Will cut through the membrane of their deviations and obstructions
High and low
Using a single word from the upadeśa instructions
Of the Great Perfection.
When we are stuck inside a hole
While on the three kinds of dangerous roads,
We may fall into the construction
Of the three castles.
We put the king in prison.
We throw the minister out to the herons.
We kill the children of our enemies.
Our enemies and kinsmen are thrown into a fever.
When delusions about rejection and accomplishment
Are happening
We cut through the membrane
Of the deviations and obstructions
Of samsara and nirvana.
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Seven: Cutting through the
Membrane of Deviance and Obstruction.
 PRACTICES FOR TAKING THINGS
INTO OUR EXPERIENCE
After he had said these words
Sattvavajra and the rest
Used the true nature of the majestic Lord of Secrets
To cut the membrane of deviance and obstruction
And then spoke on the practice
For taking it into our experience:
When we take the heart of our awareness
Into our experience
We do not change or divert
The contemplations of the Buddhas.
When we take the upadeśa instructions
Into our experience with resolve
It is not possible that we will turn out to be
In the delusions of samsara.
When we take one-pointed samadhi into our experience
It is not possible that we be obstructed
By karma and our habitual patterns.
When we take self-originating wisdom into our experience
We will not give birth to ideas
About the dharma of cause and result.
No matter what we may do
With the triad of our body, speech, and mind
We are not changed or diverted from
Our practice of great bliss.
When we take this understanding into our experience
It will divert our cravings
To take things in and to hold onto them.
When we use an awareness that has no position or preference
No matter what we may do
We will not crave.
This is not a field of practice
For fools or for the inferior.
There are practices for our body speech, and mind
That are taught for minds that are inferior.
When we do not give birth
To any substantial confidence
While we direct our intellects
To works about views,
We may have been spoken for by the All Good One,
But we are in fact deluded in our deviating ground.
By the All Good One
We are all equal,
But in that we understand or do not understand
We are not equal.
If we do not try not to boil
We will be shown the generative forces of the darkness.
A yogin of true essence
Will be liberated no matter how he lives.
He will be liberated from his delusions about titles.
We find certainty in thusness.
It is nowhere else.
We will definitely take this into our experience
And we will be liberated.
Our purpose is to take things into our experience
Without abandoning them.
At any time that we move or sit
We live naturally
Without joining or separating.
As for the dharmas that arise,
We must not hinder them.
As for dharmas that do not exist,
We must not develop them.
By abandoning things we will not be rid of them.
How will we ever succeed
By working on things?
Our causes and results arise out of other things.
This is a wisdom that has no cause or result.
Once we have dammed the river of our delusions
We will have a river of purpose.
No matter where we may live
We do not separate.
How would we be separated
When we do understand?
When we do not deliberately abandon
Our external and internal delusions
We will be liberated.
This Tantra is a wish-fulfilling jewel
That brings forth the things we need.
How would there be any wrong understanding
That comes to us from the wise?
That is what he said.
From the Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels, this is Chapter Eight: Practices for Taking
Things into Our Experience.
The Tantra on the Wheel of Precious Jewels
Is complete.
 THE WHEEL OF WISDOM
In the Indian language:
Jñāna Cakra Tantra
In the Tibetan language:
Ye she ‘khor lo’i rgyud
In the English language:
The Wheel of Wisdom Tantra
.
 A SUMMARY OF OUR ROOTS
The Blessed All Good One,
In Akani ṣṭ ha,
A palace of pervasion,
Taught these blessings to Vajrasattva,
Who was the audience,
At the time when he was explaining
The Black Yangti.
The time was dawning by itself.
It was at the moment we were brought together
Into a single circle
That he spoke out the instructions
For the four recognitions.
An oil lamp,
A mirror,
A mandala,
And a crystal jewel:
These are the four.
These are the recognitions of Vajrasattva.
In our true self-liberation
We are actually Buddhas.
It also says in the chapter about taking up songs
That true words are spoken truths.
This is to teach the four truths.
We do not turn back
And we do not return.
That is what he said.
Chapter One: A Summary of Our Roots.
THE FIRST RECOGNITION
The Blessed One Blissful Zombie
Requested the Tantra on the Four Recognitions
From the Blessed One Vajrasattva.
Listen well!
Hold this in your heart!
It also says in the chapter on taking up song:
So you must listen with a one-pointed mind!
That is what it says.
Please make it so
That the four recognitions
With none excluded
Are apparent to me!
The Blessed One said:
It is good!
That is what he said.
Vajrasattva gave instruction:
The recognition of the butter lamp is of three sorts:
Our six collections of consciousness recognize an object.
There is the recognition of the wisdom from our hearts
And the recognition that our compassion has three bodies.
It says in the scripture:
Awareness, cleanliness, and purity make three.
That is what it says.
Chapter Two: The First Recognition.
THE SECOND RECOGNITION
Vajrasattva gave instruction:
With the recognition that strikes three mirrors
We play with our vision of the three bodies
And there is a recognition of pleasure in our delusional perspectives.
There is a recognition of a manifest body
That appears by itself,
And there is the recognition of the body of the Dharma
Which is a great bliss.
The scripture also states
Our body is wisdom.
We arise by ourselves.
That is what it says.
Chapter Three: The Second Recognition.
 THE THIRD RECOGNITION
Vajrasattva gave instruction:
Through the recognition of knowledge
As a precious weapon
Our awareness will be unstained.
Our awareness is solitary and pristine.
Higher vision is a wheel of awareness.
We cut through the nooses
Of taking things in and holding onto them.
We make a determination concerning
Our heaps of thoughts.
The scripture states:
The best person benefits everyone
With every awareness of his self
And every awareness of others.
He holds a magnificent wish-fulfilling jewel.
That is what it says.
Chapter Four: The Third Recognition.
 THE FOURTH RECOGNITION
Vajrasattva gave instruction:
When we recognize the four mandalas
The external mandalas create visions.
We speak on them for the sake of our disciples.
As for the teaching on our own bodies as mandalas,
It is a teaching that is intended for the perfect.
As for the teachings on the mandala of wisdom
They explain how the body of the Dharma is a circle.
They explain how the body of the Dharma is non-dual.
We teach them for the sake of our viewpoint.
It says in the scripture:
A majestic mandala is spacious.
Non-duality is taught to be
The absence of any two things.
We are fully liberated
From the extremes of propriety.
That is what it says.
Chapter Five: The Fourth Recognition.
 EXTERNAL SIGNS
Vajrasattva gave instruction:
Once we cut through to the intent of the four recognitions
Signs of three kinds will also arise:
External signs,
Internal signs,
And secret signs.
These three kinds will appear.
External signs are of three kinds.
When appearances cannot do any harm
That is the first sign.
When the things that happen to our bodies
Do not hurt
That is the second of the supreme signs.
When we know that our conditions are circular
That is the third of the supreme signs.
Chapter Six: External Signs.
 THE TANTRA ON THE WHEEL OF WISDOM
Inner signs are of three kinds:
The prophecies of the dakinis are first.
To treasure the speech of the Dharma is second.
To attain the empowerment of our awareness is the third.
That is what he said.
Secret signs are of two kinds:
Secret signs,
And very secret signs.
Secret signs are of five kinds:
Our awareness is not an abode
That takes things in or to holds onto them.
The wisdom in our awareness dawns on us by itself.
We know that the five poisons touch on wisdom.
Our knowledge does not change due to conditions.
Regarding the birth of pristine wisdom,
These are the five kinds of secret signs:
In the most secret of signs
Nothing is signified.
There are signs of Buddhahood
And there are signs of being a sentient being.
I teach these things as signs for sentient beings.
Anyone who understands the sign of Buddhahood
Is also a sentient being whose Dharma is his intellect.
In the wisdom in which sorrow is a great bliss
The five poisons will forever arise by themselves.
We came forth from out of ourselves,
And we are liberated from out of ourselves.
We are created by ourselves,
And we understand by ourselves.
Understanding,
Misunderstanding,
Intellect,
And substance:
The dominion of samsara and nirvana is wisdom.
When Buddhas and sentient beings
Are not a duality
We teach that this is a most secret sign.
We draw on the life of the All Good One.
This is the quintessence of the life of Vajrasattva.
It was requested by Prahe Vajra.
Chapter Seven: The Tantra on the Wheel of Wisdom.
It is finished.
The Unwritten Tantra
 on Bodhicitta Meditation
In the Tibetan language:
Byang chub sems bsgom pa yi ge med pa’i rgyud
In the English language:
The Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation
 THE SECTION ON REALITY
I bow to the Blessed One Vajradhara!
Upon entering the equanimity of the samadhi
That is called: “The profound meaning of the dominion of the Dharma
That is difficult to plumb or measure,
He saw with a supreme bliss
That all of this is naturally unwritten.
Then he gave instruction on the meaning
Of a nature that is not to be seized.
Once we ourselves understand our own true nature
It is a profundity that is neither shining nor corrupt.
At the very beginning we use this profundity
So that in our transmission
We are beyond all meditation and propitiation.
We do not see the true Bodhicitta in our views.
Through trying we have lost all true meaning.
Through meditation we will not gain experience.
The four kinds of demons arise in this.
We see forms and sounds reverberate.
The demons of light and the deceivers
Appear to be our own spirits.
Wisdom that is not reverted
Is from the beginning not to be uttered or discussed.
At the first instant of our sentience
There is the root of every Dharma.
We must train and we must immerse ourselves.
If we hold to the power of extreme immersion
We will ourselves abandon our generalized designations.
We are especially engaged
In every vehicle
So why would we abide
In our own opinion?
Everything is spontaneously perfected
Without our working on it.
All of our ideas are stable and do not shift.
The heart-essence of sure intent is unsurpassed.
From the Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation,
This is the section on reality.
OUR INNER TRUE NATURE
We give up causes that are actually far off
And engage in those that are actually close to us.
We keep to a purity of thought.
Everyone keeps to the way.
We examine the upadeśa instructions.
We certainly do not investigate the meanings of signs
Using magnificent methods,
Quick methods,
Or secret methods.
Within the true dominion
Of an instant of our awareness
Everything that we see
Is corrupted by our intellects.
We see what we did not see.
This is why we see.
When there is nothing in something
It is absent in this way.
We terminate the motion
Of our demarcated habits.
We also reach the end of our demarcations.
Demarcations are actually a secret wisdom.
The ultimate truth is not a field of practice for the intellect.
The aspects of our understanding and not understanding
Are interactive,
While they lack any clear light.
We perfect the aspects of our empowerment and our samaya.
We reach the end of samsara and nirvana.
The true gathering of all our virtues
Is insubstantial,
For the mind may appear as anything.
Yogins who engage instantaneously
Direct their intellects toward emptiness.
We reach the end without stopping.
Our word is also pure.
It is due to the essence of a profound wisdom
Actually being the conceptualization of a brilliant peace
That does not contemplate and does not cleanse
That this is also the body of our wisdom.
The unsurpassed Great Perfection is beyond discussion.
It is self-arising,
Self-pacifying,
And it abides within itself.
We do not see it.
It is beyond our searches.
Enlightenment is the true nature of the sky.
From the Unwritten Meditation on the Bodhicitta,
This is the part on Our Inner True Nature.
SEEING WITH NOTHING TO LOOK AT
In a true dominion that we do not see,
In an instant of profound wisdom
Our natural arising is brilliant.
To be beyond searching for this
Is truly correct.
It has been naturally present from the primordial
So the dominion of equality encompasses us all.
We are also this way due to our wisdom.
We brilliantly join wisdom to our dominion.
Thusness is beyond the level of the Buddha.
We perfect our knowledge and methods,
Generating them with our ideas.
This is actually the level of Buddhahood.
What is empty and is not empty:
These are beyond words.
Without thought,
We abide in purity.
Our causes and results are spontaneously realized.
This is not contrived due to any adversity.
We are brilliantly at peace.
Natural peace is a magnificent method.
The true continuity of our habitual patterns
Is naturally severed.
We live as spirits that have ends
And are then severed.
From out of our lives we feel
The arising of sorrow.
There is nothing that we see
Or that we look at.
Self-arising wisdom has fallen from the primordial
On a dominion that has been self-arising
From the primordial.
Wisdom arises in us by itself.
We must use the sentinel of our awareness
To kill it.
We do not use our awareness to kill.
We feel without feeling.
Our bliss subsides,
For we are depressed.
This is not proper happiness.
Everything comes together
When we find happiness.
From the Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation,
This is the part on Seeing with Nothing to Look At.
WISDOM IS OBVIOUS
There is nothing other than emptiness.
This empty view is the king of methods.
The high king is the best of men.
He seeks to do his works through others.
Others may be doing any kind of work
But they are not kings.
They are commoners.
Now kings arise from out of the populace.
In the end we are kings.
The Victorious One has been king from the beginning,
But the king who is able to hold on
Uses methods that employ no effort or strife
To overcome the populace.
The king defeats every hero.
Because they have been overcome
The retinue of the king are very good.
He is a king that does not ridicule what is good.
It is well-known that he is superior to everyone else.
The heroes that he kills live again.
This is because the king has magic.
From the Unwritten Tantra on the Bodhicitta,
This is the part that teaches that Wisdom is Obvious.
 THE MEANING OF OUR DOMINION
There is something that is concealed
That is not to be exemplified.
It is that the dominion of the Dharma
Is obvious.
It is something that is not generated.
It is self-originating.
It is beyond all our positions and preferences.
There are no letters.
It is the best of dominions.
It is beyond being talked about.
In words we leave our dominion behind.
This is not a field of practice
For those who gather many things.
It is extremely subtle
When we investigate it.
When we examine it coarsely
Its subtlety is pure.
If we follow on it for the sake of its sound
We will fail at the limits of our achievement.
Our seeking itself is the cause of our ensnarement.
When we do not seek
We eliminate our quests.
This is called: “Being a Blessed One.”
The true character of the dominion we do not visualize
Is that reality appears without our visualizing
Anything at all.
The purpose of our dominion is actually to be called:
“The sky.”
From the Unwritten Meditations on the Bodhicitta,
This is the part that presents The Meaning of Our Dominion.
OUR DOMINION AND OUR WISDOM
ARE NOT A DUALITY
In the sky-space of the pure dominion of the Dharma
There falls the wisdom to abandon
Those who have no cause.
Our wisdom is actually the pure body of the Dharma.
In this way the embodiment of the Buddha Dharma
Is not to be seen
Even by the Buddha.
The dominion of the Dharma is not complicated.
Spontaneously realized wisdom is not generated,
For we are beyond complications.
In this way
We are self-originating awarenesses.
This is well-known to be an unwritten Tantra.
It is astounding!
There are no complications.
The dominion and the wisdom
That are not complicated
Are such that our wisdom is the dominion of the sky.
Being within the sky
We meditate on the sky.
From it there comes a wheel of experience.
It is like the dream of a woman who stutters.
There is nothing that we show by saying “this” and “this.”
The wise ones are in possession of three upadeśa instructions.
From the Unwritten Meditations on the Bodhicitta,
This is the part that shows that
Our Dominion and Our Wisdom Are Not a Duality.
THE FAULTS THERE ARE IN MEDITATION
Foolishness is actually a knowledge that is critical.
We practice the Dharmas of existence and non-existence.
The Bodhicitta has no name.
To visualize it is to be conceptual.
It is actually samsara.
When we investigate the causes for our conceptualizations
The reason for our cause
Is our supreme reward.
Our knowing this
Is actually the wisdom of our awareness.
There is no heart-essence that may be demonstrated
By the power of defining our dominion and our wisdom.
When our knowledge does not cut through our weariness
No one moves away from me,
For I am the All Good.
From the beginning
There has been nothing to take up or to reject.
We must not direct our minds toward anything.
Permanence and cessation are the winds of bliss.
There is no one who accomplishes any Dharma or happiness.
Complete purity is not what samsara intends.
We are perfect Buddhas.
So we have no Dharmas.
Many things appear to those who have ideas.
If both our dominion and our wisdom do exist
This is not the dominion of our wisdom.
Our enlightenment rests in enlightenment itself.
Due to the ominous power
Of habitual patterns that are constantly present
Our knowledge is closed up inside us.
What we do not see is the body of the Dharma.
As for our minds,
They are like the sky.
We do not go anywhere.
We do not investigate anything.
If we move we fall.
If we are attached we spin.
From the Unwritten Meditations on the Bodhicitta,
This is the part that teaches The Faults There Are in Meditation.
THE PROFOUND
Unmoving sentience is true equanimity.
This is beyond every field of practice.
It is not to be exemplified through exemplifications.
It is beyond our practices.
We do not practice.
We have nothing to say.
We do not meditate.
This is what we call non-dual experience.
Our consciousness does not follow after objects.
This is called: “Great Enlightenment.”
Our majestic self-origination is pristine.
Our minds have no visualizations.
We are like the sky.
The sky plays within the sky.
We are meditating on the sky.
So we do not talk to the sky.
When we do not practice
Any field of practice at all,
Our wisdom is a great flame of wisdom.
Our lack of motion is just this.
To be correct,
We do not move or turn backward.
We also do not abide by any non-abiding.
If there exists something to direct our minds toward
Our minds ensnare our own minds.
We do not escape.
Nothing is visible.
So we settle into not seeking anything.
From the Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation,
This is the part that teaches The Profound.
 SELF-AWARENESS
Our self-arising heart-essence
Arises by itself.
The Bodhicitta has no cause or conditions.
We know that our true objective is illusory,
And so we conceive of it.
We have nothing to say.
This is beyond talking.
In this there is no sentience at all.
We have no intellects.
We are beyond everything.
We do not work at holding onto the Dharmas.
Unmoving equanimity
Shows the primacy of our minds.
We do not see this anywhere.
It is not actually real.
A real attainment is not something
That is properly meaningful.
We do not investigate anything
Or the essence of anything.
This is the old road of all the Sugatas,
None excepted.
The thing we must practice
Is a Dharma that must be realized.
We use the power of our ideas
To hold onto the many things.
We are perfect Buddhas.
So we have no Dharmas.
The body of the Dharma
Has no joining or separation.
Our names are actually our lack of any name.
We are not stuck on any object
As an abode for our awareness.
From the Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation,
This is the part about Self-Awareness.
EVERYONE IS TRANSFORMED
INTO THE UNWRITTEN
Then he rose up from the samadhi of the dominion of the Dharma,
Which is difficult to plumb or fathom,
And he called out to the Bliss Gone Ones who were around:
Children of Good Family,
Do you see the meaning of this
Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation?
Do you hear it?
Do you understand it?
To keep to what this means,
To land on top of it,
And to penetrate it with awareness
Are extremely difficult.
This is free from complications.
It is extremely difficult for those who have gone to bliss
To see it.
Then those who had gone to bliss
Addressed our supreme hero:
On the speaking out of
The Unwritten Tantra on Bodhicitta Meditation,
How is it that it is not to be held back?
It is a topic that is extremely difficulty to investigate.
The meaning of the way that it is
Is not contrived here.
There is joy in the work of granting instructions.
So on that occasion
When the instructions were really being given,
Everyone once again transformed into
The nature of the Unwritten.
This is the Unwritten Tantra that is called
“Bodhicitta Meditation.”
This heart-essence of upadeśa instruction
Comes from the ultimate truth of the ultimate truth.
The part where everyone is transformed into the Unwritten
Is extremely difficult to analyze.
It is complete.
The Indian preceptor Śrī Singha, a person named Jñānagarbha, and the Tibetan lotsawa
monk Vairochana translated this.
 ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Christopher Wilkinson began his career in Buddhist literature at the age of fifteen, taking
refuge vows from his guru Dezhung Rinpoche. In that same year he began formal study of
Tibetan language at the University of Washington under Geshe Ngawang Nornang and
Turrell Wylie. He became a Buddhist monk, for three years, at the age of eighteen, living in
the home of Dezhung Rinpoche while he continued his studies at the University of
Washington. He graduated in 1980 with a B.A. degree in Asian Languages and Literature
and another B.A. degree in Comparative Religion (College Honors, Magna Cum Laude, Phi
Beta Kappa). After a two-year tour of Buddhist pilgrimage sites throughout Asia he worked
in refugee resettlement programs for five years in Seattle, Washington. He then proceeded
to the University of Calgary for an M.A. in Buddhist Studies. He proceeded to work on a
critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the 20,000 line Perfection of Wisdom in Berkeley,
California, followed by an intensive study of Burmese language in Hawaii. In 1990 he began
three years’ service as a visiting professor in English Literature in Sulawesi, Indonesia,
exploring the remnants of the ancient Sri Vijaya Empire there. He worked as a research
fellow for the Shelly and Donald Rubin Foundation for several years, playing a part in the
early development of the Rubin Museum of Art. He was a Research Fellow at the Centre de
Recherches sur les Civilisations de l'Asie Orientale, Collège de France, for twelve years, and
taught at the University of Calgary as an Adjunct Professor for five years. He has published
forty volumes of translations of Tibetan literature, and is currently engaged in further
translation of these great classics

[1]
Lu gu rgyud
[2]
gSang ba ‘dus pa, Guhyasamāja