Guidance on being at ease with illusion

A Wish-Fulfilling Gem: Guidance on the Meaning of Being at Ease with Illusion, A Dzogchen Teaching

by Longchen Rabjam Drimé Özer

To the dharma of the victors that is a stainless illusion, I bow.

The meaning of all dharmas is taught to be the very way of illusion. So that this may be put into practice,

I shall write down spoken instructions from my teachers

and this intent of the essential meaning of the sūtras and tantras.

First, go solely for refuge,

and generate the mind as enlightened.

From the ongoing experience of emptiness,

imagine buddhas and bodhisattvas in a circle who ultimately dissolve

along with teachers of the lineage, meditation deities, and ḍākinīs into your root teacher

who sits upon the sun and moon stacked on a lotus flower on your crown.

Mentally make offerings, praise, and confess your faults [confess being fooled by illusions], and after that, make the aspiration to train in illusion. [I will come to recognize illusion. I will work at this to the best of my ability.]

As you imagine being fully absorbed in the illusory nature of all that appears and exists, remain inseparable from that very reality –

the ongoing experience that has no ordinary conceptual fixations,

not even for an instant.

Outward appearances including mountains and mansions,

all of the earth, water, fire, wind, space, and so forth ...

and what’s inward including all that arises as the manifold variations of awareness that affirm or negate,

all of your moving, sleeping, eating, walking, talking, and so forth –

without distraction, become familiar with their nature being like a dream, an illusion, hallucination, mirage, a moon in water, an echo, castles in the clouds, an apparition.

By knowing that the appearances of objects,

affirmations or negations of the intellect, ebbs and flows of experience, and anything whatsoever, are the play of illusion –

enhance your practice and train in being artful,

so as to bring whatever you encounter within great intrinsic freedom!

Moreover, during the daytime,

it is crucial that you are not distracted for even an instant

while in the ongoing experience of becoming familiar with things as a dream and so forth.

In this way, initially practice guru yoga,

secondly, [enter into the recognition of] the illusion of appearances and mind,

and thirdly, rest [in the nature of illusion] distinctly in knowing that which is beyond projection and contraction.

Exert yourself in meditation by staying loose in the ongoing experience that is like space!

After your session, repeatedly become familiar with things from that ongoing experience of illusion.

At nighttime, rest on your right side,

breathe gently, and don’t glance about abruptly.

From the vital point of the mind within your heart,

[imagine] a white syllable “A,” about the size of a thumbnail, emitting light – and this light emanates forth across

all appearances and existence, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa,

which melt into the light, are reabsorbed into you, and dissolve into the “A.”

By meditating without distraction in that very ongoing experience, While you are asleep in a dream and similarly –

first, be certain and then,

multitudes will proliferate from one

and those multitudes will be absorbed back into the one; the fierce will be transformed from the quiescent,

and there will be apparitions of gods, nāgas, and so forth ...

At that very moment, train in their unreality

and gradually mingle with their unborn luminosity.

On all such occasions, make supplications to your teachers and do not be distracted even for an instant.

During the day, be very diligent in conjuring apparitions.

This vital point is extremely important!

By becoming familiar in this way,

even though illusory experiences will dawn as described,

it will be impossible to avoid developing the understanding that they are unreal.

As for affirmations or negations and fixations that arise in your mind, by training to recognize these as illusions,

obstructions will transform into their intrinsic freedom!

Moreover, from this ongoing experience, the qualities of meditative concentration — bliss, clarity, and nonthought — will dawn.

By resting [in the nature of illusion] with these appearances, move into their translucence – at that very moment of an appearance,

evenly move into their cracks of light [space between wake and sleep], ambiguities, and perforations [dots of reality] – move with the shimmering, fluctuating, and pervasiveness of awareness.

By merging outer, inner, and in-between into one, invert the holdings of your body.

In the ongoing experience that is never separate from great vastness without reference, attraction or repulsion, affirmation or negation,

while laughing or losing control, whatever occurs –

these will dawn as ornaments of your mind.

Through unwavering meditative absorption, the mind will remain clear and lucid,

your vision will see the translucency of appearances, you’ll have the clairvoyance of knowing others’ minds,

and you’ll accomplish the immeasurable supernormal powers, such as the ability to travel through space.

By the virtue that arises from this explanation

of how to experience all phenomena as illusory by nature,

may the activity of the illusion-like victors on behalf of all beings without exception remain beyond limit!

I, the yogin of illusion, Stainless Radiance (Drimé Özer), arranged this instruction on the coalescence of luminosity and illusion, the essential meaning of illusion, extremely vast and profound in meaning, on the mountain slope that is like an illusion, White Skull Snow Mountain (Gangri Tökar).

Fortunate individuals of future generations,

please constantly and diligently apply themselves to this way of the dharma.

Freed from the dimness of the illusion of mis-knowing,

appearances of percepts will transform into the spontaneous illusion of pristine wisdom.

This concludes the text called, “A Wish-Fulfilling Gem: Guidance on the Meaning of Being at Ease with Illusion, A Dzogchen Teaching,” that was arranged by the child of the victors, Drimé Özer.

Virtue! Virtue! Virtue!!