Cloud Banks of Nectar

A Yearning Supplication and Aspiration to the Three Roots

By Longchenpa

Victorious Ones and Your Sons in the ten directions,

All assemblies of noble Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas,

And everyone who practices the Dharma, I supplicate

    you respectfully.

Regard me with compassion and grant your blessings.

Gurus of the three lineages, peaceful and wrathful yidam deities,

Dakas and Dakinis, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,

Dharma Protectors and Samaya-holders, Rishis who have attained

    true speech,

Lovingly bestow your blessings on this supplicating child.

Kyema Kyihu, a wretched one like me,

Has been tormented by unbearable karma and the kleshas for so long.

Stretch out your hands with great love and compassion

And guide me this very moment.

Although my nature is primordially enlightened,

Because of ignorance and confusion I have wandered

    throughout existence.

I am desolate in this dream-like samsara.

Please be my refuge and protect me.

Please rescue me and countless sentient beings

From the endless ocean of samsara, so difficult to cross.

Take us across the sea of suffering

In the unsurpassable boat of wisdom.

The manifestations of tendencies - habits for so long,

And dualistic grasping to deluded experience, are more

    imposing than Mount Sumeru.

Please demolish them this very moment

With the wisdom vajra of supreme liberation.

The darkness of ignorance, such a dense obscuration,

    has lasted so long,

It is hard to fathom and its end is impossible to see.

With your wisdom light rays please clear away

This immense cover which obscures the luminous essence.

Whatever I do, it is but the cause of kleshas and suffering.

Letting my mind turn completely away

From the futile concerns of this world,

Please make me spend day and night in Dharma practice.

Incorrect thinking is like overlapping waves.

Various conceptualizations chase after the five sense objects.

Please pacify the eight collections, the tendencies and

     the all-ground

Within Dharmadhatu.

Conceptual tendencies, the klesha-mind of the desire realm,

And habitual tendencies connected with the samsaric mind

Of the clarity of the form realm and the nonthought of

     the formless,

Please purify all of them.

Having turned away from the pursuit of solitary peace -

The inferior attitude of practicing for the benefit of oneself,

Let me enter the path of the supreme outer, inner and

     secret teachings

And enable me to act vastly for the benefit of others.

Completely purifying karma, the kleshas and tendencies

Of all beings who are on an inferior, perverted or mistaken path,

Please help everyone, without exception, to journey together

To the liberated citadel of the wishfulfilling mind-essence.

We have remained for so long, without beginning or end

In the ocean of obscurations, murky with emotions,

With no chance for emancipation by ourselves.

Please liberate us with your great compassion.

From the strong and intense emotions, so hard to endure,

From the pain of existence with so much suffering,

And from the level of carelessness, dependency and laziness

Please fully liberate us this very day.

May we fully realize that all futile phenomena

Are impermanent, unstable, a magical enticement for the mind.

Please enable us to spend day and night continously

With sincere renunciation and weariness.

Having attained awareness, super-knowledge and samadhi

In the delightful secluded phases of sacred mountain dwellings,

Please enable us to arrive, withtin this very lifetime,

At the celestial realm of great bliss, the spontaneous

     accomplishment of the two benefits.

Exerting ourselves in practice, alone with perseverance,

May we not drift toward the concerns of this life for an instant.

Perfecting the siddhis in the footsteps of the forefathers,

May we always please our spiritual master.

Free from the flows of broken samayas,

And realizing unmistakenly the meaning of the view,

     meditation, action and result,

Without wavering from the luminous state, day and night,

May we accomplish the twofold benefit for self and others.

Perfecting development and completion, the purity of

     what appears and exists,

Let the ocean of dakinis samaya-holders gather like

     cloud banks.

With the twofold siddhis descending on us like rain,

May we accomplish the four activities.

With pure perception and devotion arising without bias,

With uninterrupted love and compassion,

And with experience and realization - the virtues of

      view and meditation - blazing forth,

May we impartially act for the welfare of beings.

Through this, our perfect devotion and merit,

May all beings be fully liberated together, without exception,

And journey withtin this very lifetime

To Samantabhadra's realm of spontaneously present great bliss.

This supplication was made at Lharing Drag, the seat of the Self

Born Padma, by Longchen Rabjam, a yogin of the supreme

vehicle who has attained unshakable faith in all the holy masters

and is wealthy with the richness of learning. May this be auspicious

throughout all directions and times.