Category Archives: Mahamudra EN

Longchenpa: A Mirror Revealing the Crucial Points, Advice on the Ultimate Meaning.

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Longchenpa: Whatever thoughts arise, recognizing their essence, allow them all to be liberated as the display of your own intrinsic nature.

Longchenpa: Whatever thoughts arise, recognizing their essence, allow them all to be liberated as the display of your own intrinsic nature.

Longchen Rabjam: A Mirror Revealing the Crucial Points, Advice on the Ultimate Meaning.

Single embodiment of the compassion, power and activity
Of the infinite mandalas of victorious buddhas, beyond measure,
Glorious lama, supreme sovereign lord of a hundred buddha families,
At your feet, now and forever, I pay homage!

Ema! Fortunate yogins, listen now:

We have gained a perfect human form with its freedoms and advantages, we have met the precious teachings of the Mahāyāna, and we have the freedom to practice the sacred Dharma authentically. So, at this time, let us not waste our lives in meaningless pursuits, but work towards the genuine, lasting goal.

There are infinite categories of teaching and countless are the ways to enter the vehicles. Explanations can involve a great many words and expressions. Unless we can take to heart the essence of the genuine meaning, then even committing many hundreds of thousands of volumes to memory will not decidedly bring benefit at the moment of death. Continue reading »

Tilopa: Song of the Mahamudra

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Tilopa

Tilopa

Song of the Mahamudra composed by Tilopa to Naropa.
Mahamudra, the royal way, is free
from every word and sacred symbol.
For you alone, beloved Naropa,
this wonderful song springs forth from Tilopa
as spontaneous friendship that never ends.
The completely open nature
of all dimensions and events
is a rainbow always occurring
yet never grasped.
The way of Mahamudra
creates no closure.
No strenuous mental effort
can encounter this wide open way.
The effortless freedom of awareness
moves naturally along it.
As space is always freshly appearing
and never filled, Continue reading »

Tilopa’s Mahamudra Instruction

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Naropa

Naropa

Tilopa’s Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa in Twenty Eight Verses

Homage to the Eighty Four Mahasiddhas!
Homage to Mahamudra!
Homage to the Vajra Dakini!

Mahamudra cannot be taught. But most intelligent Naropa,
Since you have undergone rigorous austerity,
With forbearance in suffering and with devotion to your Guru,
Blessed One, take this secret instruction to heart.

Is space anywhere supported? Upon what does it rest?
Like space, Mahamudra is dependant upon nothing;
Relax and settle in the continuum of unalloyed purity,
And, your bonds loosening, release is certain.

Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases;
Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself,
The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends
And supreme enlightenment is gained.

Like the morning mist that dissolves into thin air,
Going nowhere but ceasing to be,
Waves of conceptualization, all the mind’s creation, dissolve,
When you behold your mind’s true nature. Continue reading »

The Mahamudra Dohakosa

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Mahasiddha Saraha

Mahasiddha Saraha

Homage to Sri Vajradakini.
Homage to innate union of Gnosis and Great Bliss.

This exposition is in three parts: The Mahamudra of ground, of path, and of the result.

Part One: The Ground of Mahamudra

A. Establishing an understanding of Reality

Being and non-being, appearance and emptiness, the moving and the abiding, the substantial and insubstantial embracing the whole of time and space, never departs from the sky-like original nature.

In referring to Ultimate Reality (dharmata) as the sky-like original nature, understand that to be sky-like is to have no intrinsic nature at all. It is completely beyond objectification and beyond all concepts such as “is” or “is not;” both “is” or “is not” or something other that “is” or “is not.” Between “sky”,”mind” and “Ultimate Reality” no distinction should be made. All these terms should be taken as mere designations and concepts. Everything is one’s own mind. Not so much as an atom exists outside of mind. Whoever realizes that from the very beginning there has been nothing other than mind, has acquired the realization of all the Buddhas of the three times.

Continue reading »

Maitripa: the Song of Mahamudra

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Maitripa

Maitripa


Sanskrit title: Mahamudra-sanca[ya]-mitha

Tibetan title: Phyag-rgya chen-po tshig-bsdus-pa

Homage to Great Bliss!

Mahamudra is knowing that

all things are one’s own mind.

Seeing objects as external is just noetic projection.

The whole of “appearance” is as empty as a dream.

The mind as such is merely a flow of awareness,

without self-nature, moving where it will like the wind.

Empty of an identity, it is like space.

All phenomena, like space, are the same. Continue reading »

Maitripa: Essential Mahamudra Verses

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Maitripa

Maitripa

To innermost bliss, I pay homage!

Were I to explain Mahamudra, I would say —

All phenomena? Your own mind!

If you look outside for meaning, you’ll get confused.

Phenomena are like a dream, empty of true nature,

And mind is merely the flux of awareness,

No self nature: just energy flow.

No true nature: just like the sky.

All phenomena are alike, sky-like.

Continue reading »

Mahamudra

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The First Panchen Lama Lozang Chokyi Gyeltsen

The First Panchen Lama Lozang Chokyi Gyeltsen

A root text for the precious Gelug/Kagyu tradition of Mahamudra

The Main Road of the Triumphant Ones

The First Panchen Lama Lozang Chokyi Gyeltsen

Namo mahamudraya: Homage to mahamudra, the great seal of reality.

I respectfully bow at the feet of my peerless guru, lord of that which pervades everywhere, master of those with actual attainment, who expounds the all-pervasive nature of everything, the great seal of reality, mahamudra, inseparable from the diamond-strong sphere of mind that is beyond speech. Continue reading »

The Cuckoo of Awareness

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An Ornament for Acquiring Realization known as

The Six Diamond Stanzas

Translation of the Tun-huang manuscript:

Svasti: Holy Of Holies! Homage To The Body-Speech-Mind Of
The All-Beneficent Lord, Vajra Of Great Bliss!

I. The intrinsic nature of diversity is nondual, Continue reading »

Masters of Mahamudra

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Songs and Histories of the Eighty-four Buddhist Siddhas

The Legends of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Grub thob brgyad bcu tsa bzhi’i lo rgyus) by Mondup Sherab orally dictated by Abhayadatta Sri (12th c.) and Vajra Songs: the Heart Realizations of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Grub thob brgyad bcu rtogs pa’i snying po rdo rje’i lu) by Vira Prakash, translated by Keith Dowman Continue reading »

Nagarjuna’s Mahamudra Vision

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Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna

Homage to Manjusrikumarabhuta!

1. I bow down to the all-powerful Buddha
Whose mind is free of attachment,

Who in his compassion and wisdom
Has taught the inexpressible.

2. In truth there is no birth –
Then surely no cessation or liberation;
The Buddha is like the sky
And all beings have that nature.

3. Neither Samsara nor Nirvana exist,
But all is a complex continuum
With an intrinsic face of void,
The object of ultimate awareness.

4. The nature of all things
Appears like a reflection,
Pure and naturally quiescent,
With a non-dual identity of suchness.

5. The common mind imagines a self
Where there is nothing at all,
And it conceives of emotional states –
Happiness, suffering, and equanimity. Continue reading »

The 9° Karmapa: Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance – 1

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The Ninth Karmapa: Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance – 1

Introduction

I make heartfelt obeisance to the precious Kagyu line. Although manifestly enlightened countless ages ago, you have been emanating in whatever bodies have been suited for taming those needing to be tamed, so that even hearing your names eliminates the fears of recurring samsara. Continue reading »

The 9° Karmapa: Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance – 2

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The Ninth Karmapa: Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance – 2

Mahamudra Shamatha Meditation

The Essential Points concerning the Body and Mind

As for the actual fundamental part, there are two (sections): a stilled and settled state of shamatha and an exceptionally perceptive state of vipashyana.

As for the first, in general, there are many methods for developing samadhi, absorbed concentration. But, if you know one set of essential points, then hindrances and interferences will not come about and, parted from any faults regarding shamatha or vipashyana, boon experiences and stable realizations of primordial deep awareness will occur without any labor. Continue reading »

The 9° Karmapa: Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance – 4

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The Ninth Karmapa: Mahamudra Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance – 4

Enhancing Mahamudra Meditation

Combining Mahamudra with Other Sutra and Tantra Practices and with the Four Types of Behavior

As for the third part, the concluding material, there are also the actions for enhancing your progress.

When, without meandering, you have totally immersed yourself in the mental hold of the mindfulness Continue reading »

Adeu Rinpoche: Dzogchen and Mahamudra, Two Great Paths

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Trulshik Adeu Rinpoche

Adeu Rinpoche: Dzogchen and Mahamudra, Two Great Paths

Dzogchen and Mahamudra, the Great Perfection and the Great Seal, are powerful meditative systems for revealing the nature of mind, explains Adeu Rinpoche. While their methods may differ, their essence is the same.

The meditation approach of Mahamudra as found in the Tibetan Kagyu tradition and the Dzogchen approach from the Nyingma tradition are identical in essence, you may follow one or the other, however, each has its own unique instructions. In each system, Mahamudra and Dzogchen, various methods are used to reveal the nature of bare awareness itself. Continue reading »

Saraha: Mahamudra

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Saraha

SARAHA

“Kye Ho! Do not fear distraction, trying to keep attention on the mind. If you realize the nature of your own mind, then even the wandering mind will be seen as the Mahamudra. In the state of Great Bliss all dualistic features become auto-liberated.
Like awakening from a dream, pleasure and pain then seem to have had no reality whatsoever.
So, abandon hope and fear. Let go of trying to accomplish something or exhibiting anything. Since all the phenomena of both Samsara and Nirvana are devoid of “self-nature,” any clinging to hopeful or doubtful thoughts is simply meaningless. What is the point of striving to accept or reject anything?
Even visible form and sound vibration are like a magical illusion, a hologram or a reflection in a mirror — they possess no substantiality.

That which realizes this, the magician, is the sky-like mind itself. This one true nature is without centre or circumference, nor is there anyone separate therefrom who can comprehend this. Just as all the great rivers, the Ganga, etc., equally flow into the one Great Ocean, so mind and mental content have only one taste in the Dharmadhatu.”

Story of SARAHA.
Wisdom of a Dakini.
One day Saraha asked his wife for some radish curry. She prepared the dish, but in the meantime Saraha entered a deep meditation from which he did not emerge for twelve years. He then immediately asked for his radish curry. His wife was astonished, “You have been in meditation for twelve years; now it is summer and there are no radishes.”
Saraha then decided to go to the mountains for more meditation.
“Physical isolation is not a real solitude,” replied his wife. Continue reading »

The 1° Panchen Lama: Root Text for Mahamudra

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The First Panchen Lama Lozang-chokyi-gyeltsen (Pan-chen Blo-bzang chos-kyi rgyal-mtshan): Root Text for Mahamudra “dGe-ldan bka’-brgyud rin-po-che’i phyag-chen rtsa-ba rgyal-ba’i gzhung-lam”.

Namo mahamudraya – homage to mahamudra, the great seal of reality.

I respectfully bow at the feet of my peerless guru, lord of that which pervades everywhere, master of those with actual attainment, who expounds, in a denuding manner, the diamond strong vajra sphere of mind, parted from (what can be expressed in) speech, inseparable from mahamudra, the great seal of reality, the all pervasive nature of everything. Continue reading »

The Third Karmapa: The Mahamudra Prayer

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The Third Karmapa Rangjung-dorjey (Kar-ma Rang-byung rdo-rje): The Mahamudra Prayer, “Nges-don phyag-rgya chen-po’i smon-lam”

Homage to my Gurus.

(1) Gurus, yidams, and mandala figures, Triumphant Ones in the ten directions and three times, with your spiritual offspring, please regard me with affection. Inspire me that my prayers come true just as I’ve made them. Continue reading »

Saraha: The Royal Song

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Saraha

Saraha

Saraha: The Royal Song

I bow down to noble Manjushri
I bow down to Him who has conquered the finite.

1 As calm water lashed by wind
Turns into waves and rollers,
So the king thinks of Saraha
In many ways, although one man.

2 To a fool who squints
One lamp is as two;
Where seen and seer are not two, ah! the mind
Works on the thingness of them both.

3 Though the house-lamps have been lit,
The blind live on in the dark.
Though spontaneity is all-encompassing and close,
To the deluded it remains always far away. Continue reading »

Tilopa: Pith Instructions on Mahamudra

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The great Mahasiddha Tilopa

Pith Instructions on Mahamudra from Mahasiddha Tilopa: The Ganges Mahamudra Upadesha 

I bow to Vajra Dakini.
1 Mahamudra cannot be taught, Naropa,

But your devotion to your teacher and the hardships you’ve met

Have made you patient in suffering and also wise:

Take this to heart, my worthy student.

2 For instance, consider space: what depends on what?

Likewise, mahamudra: it doesn’t depend on anything.

Don’t control. Let go and rest naturally.

Let what binds you let go and freedom is not in doubt.

3 When you look into space, seeing stops. Continue reading »

Gampopa: The Very Essence of Mind, Mahamudra

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Gampopa

Gampopa: The Very Essence of Mind, Mahamudra, the One Sufficient Path

Homage to the genuine gurus.

The Mahamudra of Gampopa, the One Sufficient Path, has three sections:
1) To Have a Decisive Understanding About the True Nature,
2) The Introduction to the Fundamental Character, and
3) Training on the Path of Suchness.

To Have a Decisive Understanding About the True Nature
Mahamudra has no causes.
Mahamudra has no conditions.
Mahamudra has no methods.
Mahamudra has no path.
Mahamudra has no result. Continue reading »