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By His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche
To begin with, it is extremely crucial for people endowed with good fortune to master the four preliminary mind-reversals continually, again and again, with a pure desire to obtain the precious state of liberation and omniscience, as well as relying on the light of the excellent Dharma that gathers the teachings of the exalted speech of the Buddha, the King of Subduers, the vehicle with nine stages that is endowed with the three valid ways of knowing.
AH HO! Listen, my two friends:
This human body of freedoms and advantages is difficult to obtain. Now, at this moment you have attained it,
You must accomplish the ultimate aim.
First, contemplate the wealth that is extremely difficult to obtain. The Venerable Shantideva says,
These freedoms and riches are so hard to get, By which the aims of beings are accomplished. If I fail now to achieve their benefit,
How could these great riches ever come again?
Second, contemplate the impermanence of life. The Extensive Display Sutra says,
The three realms are impermanent, like the clouds of autumn. The birth and death of wanderers is like viewing a play.
The life of beings passes just like lightning through the sky, Passes quickly, like water descending a steep mountain.
Third, contemplate the unerringness of cause and effect. The Sutra of Instructions to the King says,
Time undoes a king after serving him;
His comforts and loved ones cannot follow. As for beings, wherever they next go, Their actions will go too, like a shadow.
Fourth, contemplate the faults of cyclic existence. Again, the Extensive Display Sutra says,
Through the power of ignorance and desire for existence, Beings circle among these five destinations, unaware,
In the human and god realms and the three bad destinations, Just like, for instance, the constant circling of a potter’s wheel. The three realms blaze with the suffering of old age and disease; They lack any protection from the great blaze of birth and death; Wanderers thick with obscurations arise from the three realms, Just like the constant circling of bees trapped in a water pot.
The lama, so difficult to find,
Is the actual buddha. To have met him
And attained the profound instructions
On the swift path of liberation in a single lifetime
Comes from the power of previously accumulated merit.
It cannot be bought [even] with a wish-fulfilling jewel.
Therefore, with intense effort
Practice until the end of your life.
The root of Dharma is bodhicitta—
Benefitting others is the activity of the Conqueror’s offspring.
[The “Conqueror’s offspring” (rgyal sras) are the bodhisattvas.]
Divorced from this, through the vehicle of the śravakas
One does not attain enlightenment.
When the wild wind of anger descends
On clusters of the good harvest of virtue
It can destroy the fruition.
[Thus,] apply yourself to the practice of mindful conscientiousness.
[Taking the vows of] individual liberation without disciplining one’s own mind, [Practicing] bodhicitta without compassion
[And] Secret Mantra without upholding samaya:
These are the causes of [rebirth in] hell.
The root of power is samaya.
If you maintain it, it is like the nectar of immortality.
If you do not keep it,
It is like eating deadly poison.
[The possibilities of] excellent profit and terrible loss are great,
Therefore guard your samayas as your life. Profound, true teachings are many.
By discarding one and embracing another, You will not accomplish even a single result. Therefore, exert yourself one-pointedly.
All phenomenal appearances of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa Are the false impressions of one’s own illusory mind.
To recognize your own nature
As the dharmakāya of primordial awareness is the view. Not fettered by the chains of dualistic grasping,
It is utterly open natural awareness. Within this state of freshness, Meditate in utterly relaxed equipoise. Remain in a state of not engaging
In the nine activities of the three doors.
[The nine activities of the three doors (sgo gsum bya ba dgu phrugs) are all the outer, inner, and secret activities of body, speech, and mind, which one gives up when practicing Tögal. Three concern the body: (1) outwardly, all worldly, distracting activities, (2) inwardly, all ordinary virtuous deeds such as prostrations and circumambulations, and (3) secretly, all unnecessary movements that scatter one’s practice. Three concern speech: (1) outwardly, all worldly, deluded conversations, (2) inwardly, all liturgies and recitations, and (3) secretly, any talking whatsoever. Three concern the mind: (1) outwardly, all worldly, deluded thoughts, (2) inwardly, all mental activity focused on visualizations of the development and the completion stages, and (3) secretly, all movements of the mind.]
The essential, key point of conduct
Is [to keep] your activities in accord with the Dharma.
Do not seek an object of attainment from anywhere else—
Your own intrinsic awareness is Samantabhadra.
By actualizing it, you have seized your own dominion.
[This] is the sovereign of the spontaneously accomplished fruition.
In this way, correctly understand the view, meditation, conduct, and result Exactly as they are.
Practice one-pointedly
And you are certain to seize the throne in this lifetime.
As I am neither fully ordained, nor layman, I have little merit.
If, through the lama’s compassion,
I might remain unobscured by the negative karma of misplaced offerings,
[“Misplaced offerings” (dkor sgrib) refers to obscuration created by misplacing or mishandling religious donations. This line does not connote that the author (His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche) has generated this obscuration; rather, he here prays that he and (more notably) his students might continue to avoid such obscuration in the future.]
[And thus] be fortunate to arrive In a pure land,
Then we, teacher and students, Will be together inseparably—
I pray for this again and again.
Accordingly, Chowang and Tsultrim asked for instruction. Without opposing their earnest request, I, [Dudjom] Yeshe Dorje, wrote [this teaching].
Translated by Samye Translation Group on Dakini Day, September 20, 2022.
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