ADVICE FROM OLD VIJAYA

Homage to the guru.

Here is advice to the devoted and sincere Riksang of noble

family.

If you want your Dharma practice to be genuine, make sure that

first of all the topics of the hard to achieve freedoms and riches,

death and impermanence, consequences of actions, and the defects

of samsara do not become mere words and ideas, but reflect upon

them from the core of your heart. So that once you are familiarized,

your mind has turned away from the entirety of samsara’s luxuries

and— as a matter of course— you will only be interested in the

sublime Dharma, so that nothing else matters. Once you feel this

way, you have already covered half of Dharma practice.

In addition to that, keep reminding yourself of your guru’s and

the Three Jewel’s excellent qualities. Having trained in this, you will

seek no other refuge than your guru and the Three Jewels, no mat­

ter what joys or sorrows befall you. Once that happens, you have

become one of the Buddha’s followers. T hat itself is the refuge

training, the foundation for all other precepts.

In addition to that, train in accepting all sentient beings as your

parents and with this attitude cultivate uninterruptedly loving kind­

ness, compassion and awakened mind. Once you have become

accustomed to this, you are capable of benefiting others in whatever

you do and you are forever free of the chain of selfishness. W hen

that has happened, you are included among the Mahayana follow­

ers, and this is how you deserve the name “child of the conquerors.”

T he merit and benefits of this are beyond measure.

These are the ways in which you avoid going astray from the

true path, so as long as you have not yet succeeded in the above, it

does not matter at all how well you can chant or do sadhana, how

lofty your view or deep your meditation, or how meticulous your

behavior is, because everything you do becomes nothing other than

seeking worldly goals and pursuing food and clothing. This does not

bring you even a millimeter closer to the true path. You have simply

fooled yourself and become your own deceiver. Since this is so,

don’t begin with grabbing at high teachings, but instead do the u t­

most to take those topics to heart.

To be a Dharma person, you must integrate the teachings into

your heart. Practice should mean that your practice works effec­

tively as a remedy against the three poisons. A Dharma practice that

does not remedy selfish emotions is completely useless. The

Dharma has taken birth in your being when your mind and the

teachings fuse so that the teachings remedy ego-clinging. Your

Dharma has now become the path; it has been successful.

From then and onwards, whichever practice you do related to

the four empowerments—whether it be development stage, recita­

tion, or completion stage with and without concepts—it will now

genuinely be the unexcelled, swift path and does not lead down a

wrong track.

The perspective of development stage is to acknowledge that all

phenomena—the multitude of thoughts and concepts that comprise

aggregates, elements and sense-bases—from the beginning possess a

nature of “cleared perfection.” As a deity mandala of the three bases

of completeness, they are undivided purity and equality. It is while

acknowledging this that the three aspects of vivid features, pure

symbolism and stable pride are of utmost importance, as are the

three of purifying, perfecting, and maturing. If you lack this vital

point of acknowledgement, and instead regard a deity as having a

real and material face, eyes and nose, I cannot guarantee where you

will end up.

About the reciting and chanting, you should do them while ac­

knowledging that the movements of breath and energies, as well as

all voices and sounds of the animate and inanimate world, since the

beginning are the utterly perfect speech of the conquerors, the

never-arising audible emptiness. It is while acknowledging this that

you should possess the vital points of recitation, such as the four

nails that bind the life-force. If you lack this vital point of acknowl­

edgement, but instead recite with roving gaze and absent-minded,

unbridled tongue, just flapping your lips up and down is not likely

to yield a profound result.

Now, the completion stage is to recognize that your basic nature

is the awakened mind of knowing, beyond bondage and liberation,

the vajra mind of the conquerors since the beginning. Do not allow

your recognizing this to be just an assumption or pretense, but

recognize the true natural state of your mind, without being mista­

ken. It is while knowing this that you should keep recognizing like

the steady flow of a great river instead of picking or choosing,

accepting or rejecting. W ithout that it will lead you nowhere to

concentrate obsessively, to be over-ambitious or continue with the

hollowness of theories and generalizations.

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In order to truly recognize your nature, you must receive the

blessings of a guru who has the lineage. This transmission depends

upon the disciple’s devotion. It is not given just because of having a

close relationship. It is therefore vital never to separate yourself from

the devotion of seeing your guru as the dharmakaya buddha.

Towards that, it will moreover be helpful to persevere in the

various ways of gathering the accumulations and purifying your

obscurations. W ithout assembling any of these favorable causes and

conditions, to just busy yourself with so much study and talk will

help nothing. There are many who in the time of real need discover

that they had fooled themselves all along.

W hen on the contrary you assemble the many causes in your­

self, such as trust and devotion, you find that the compassionate

influence of the gurus in the three times is beyond increase and de­

crease and that you are drenched with the blessings of the three

roots. W hen that is the case whatever you wish for of supreme and

common attainments will come to you spontaneously. In this way,

you will be a hero who accomplishes the welfare of both yourself

and others. But looking at our present thoughts and deeds, this will

hardly be more than wishful thinking. If you nevertheless are able to

persevere it will surely come true. This is proven by the true state­

ments of the Vajradhara Conqueror and the authentic life examples

of our former masters. So keep this advice in your hearts.

Even if I had expressed these advice in verse lines, the vital

meaning is no other. So to simplify the meaning, I expressed them

here in prose. Through this goodness may your mind be successful

on the true path.

May it be helpful. May it be helpful. May it be helpful.

This was uttered by Padma Vijaya.

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Moreover, everything belonging to the world and beings, sam-

saric and nirvanic states, is all the play, dance, and adornment of

self-knowing awakened mind and is experienced as nothing other

than that. This is similar to failing to find a single ordinary stone or

clod of dirt when you have arrived on an island of pure gold. In the

same way, as everything is utterly subsumed within the expanse of

the single sphere, it is the originally free great perfection beyond

constructs. You can find this clearly explained in the writings of

Flawless Light Ray, Samantabhadra in person, as well in the writ­

ings of his lineage heirs.

This fact is not created by wise buddhas nor forged by clever

sentient beings. It cannot be held bound through the golden con­

cepts of clinging to a view and meditation nor can it be polluted by

the evil concepts that hold dualistic emotions. T he true nature that

is present since the beginning— an original, co-emergent wakeful­

ness, the composure of intrinsic knowing— this is right now, simply

the nature of mind in all of us: naked empty knowing.

This uncontrived natural state of ordinary mind is not a new

invention made by learned masters nor is it newly produced through

disciples' excellent practice. But rather, it is an indelible and primor­

dial presence within the mind-stream of everyone—from Samanta­

bhadra above, down to and including the tiniest insect. Sentient be­

ings however fail to acknowledge this, their own nature, like the

metaphor of the lost prince who is forgotten among common

people. Decide therefore that your uncontrived, fresh wakefulness is

itself the dharmakaya mind of Samantabhadra.

s

Whatever experience unfolds, do not pollute it with the judg­

ments of what should be kept or discarded, accepted or rejected.

Rather, set free your undirected wakefulness in unbridled vastness

of free presence, and settle definitively on vast pervasiveness, free

and unbound.

Apart from that, it is essential not to spoil it with the various

kinds of attempts to modify and improve, such as expecting some­

thing better, fearing it gets worse, focusing at something over there,

concentrating on something as being here, encouraging stillness,

discouraging thought movement, keeping score of a rising and ceas­

ing, making a split between lucid and empty, or any other value

judgment about your experience.

In short, when your present wakefulness, fresh and naked,

opens up as the heart of training, you can be fully content with just

that, without having to “change its coat or smooth its edges”.

Just as the saying “As water clears when undisturbed, the mind

will clear when uncontrived,” it is also a vital point to settle in

naturalness without polluting yourself with value judgments. N o

matter how excellent you believe your assumptions and contrived

view and meditation states to be, they are nothing but different ways

of clinging. As long as this clinging persists, you are still sowing the

seeds for further samsara, just as Saraha sang:

Whatever you may cling to, let it go.

W hen this insight is yours, then everything is this.

N o one will find an insight superior to this.

H e also sang: “A sore from just a single husk, can soon bring

forth tremendous pain.” So let your mind be uncontrived. This is

of utmost importance.

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As various thought forms, wholesome or unwholesome, unfold

as the display of this mind, allow them just to be, uncontrived. Do

not attempt to reject or accept, approve or disprove. By letting be in

this way, everything will assist you in letting pristine wakefulness

dawn. For this to dawn you must receive the realized state of wake­

fulness of the ultimate transmission. And to receive it you must re­

ceive the blessings of a guru. The receiving of such blessings depends

entirely upon the disciples’ trust and devotion, so keep this advice

your mind.

This was spoken by the old Vijaya.

Padma V ijaya is Sbecben Gyaltsab Pema Namgyal. H e was one o f tbe two main

root gurus o fD i lg o Kbyentse Rinpocbe and one o f tbe teachers o fK b u n u Lam a Tendzin

Gyaltsen. Cbokyi N y im a Rinpocbe received these teachings f r o m Dilgo Kbyentse R in ­

pocbe.

This translation was made based on Cbokyi N y im a Rinpoches explanations. R in ­

pocbe stipulated to share it only w ith people who were present at the teachings.

E r ik Pema Kunsang, 2009,

Rangjung Yesbe Gomde, D enm ark