IN PRAISE OF THE ULTIMATE REALM Arya Nagarjuna Translated by Jim Scott Edited by Leon Breaux 1. There is something, left unknown, that results in life s three realms of vicious circling though beyond all doubt, it dwells in every being. To the ultimate realm I devoutly bow. 2. The stages of the path purify cyclic existence s cause into liberation: precisely the ultimate body. 3. Butter, inherent in milk, does not appear. The ultimate realm remains unseen, mixed with the afflictions. 4. Separated milk no longer disguises butter. Separating out the afflictions reveals the stainless, ultimate realm. 5. A butter lamp burning inside an opaque vase remains invisible. The ultimate realm remains invisible inside the dark vase of the afflictions.
6. If you perforate the vase, light will shine through precisely those holes as is its nature. 7. At the very moment when the diamond mind obliterates the vase the light burning inside shines throughout space. 8. The ultimate realm, unborn and unceasing remains free of afflictions, stainless at beginning, middle, and end. 9. Precious sapphire forever shines with brilliance. Confined within a rough stone, we see no brightness shining. 10. Obscured behind the afflictions, the ultimate realm has no flaws. Cyclic existence blocks its brilliance. In liberation its light shines freely. 11. With the fundamental element present, labor yields the purest gold; lacking this fundamental element, labor produces only woe. 12. As kernels enveloped in their husks are not rice, the name Buddha does not apply to those enveloped in the afflictions. 13. Loosened from the husk the rice appears, and the Dharma body, loosened from the afflictions, freely shines. - 2 -
14. We say in the world that banana trees have no pith. Yet the fruit of the tree has pith, and is sweet upon the tongue when eaten. 15. Cyclic existence has no pith, and if beings can remove the peel of the afflictions the fruit is Buddhahood, nectar for all sentient beings. 16. From a given seed results a fruit resembling its cause. Who would seek to prove a fruit exists without its specific seed as cause? 17. All great qualities support the ultimate seed. Through gradual refinement, step by step, you will attain Buddhahood. 18. Five veils exist which obscure the unstained sun and moon: clouds, fog, smoke, eclipses, and dust. 19. Five obscurations eclipse the mind s clear light: desire, laziness, ill intent, agitation, and doubt. 20. Fire can clean a soiled cloth of stains, burning away the taints but leaving the cloth, 21. and the fire of primordial mind burns away desire and the other afflictions without burning away the mind s luminosity. - 3 -
22. In the sutras, all the ways the Victor describes emptiness can rectify the afflictions. None can diminish the potential. 23. Water deep inside the earth lies untouched and perfectly clean. Primordial mind rests within the afflictions and remains free of flaws. 24. The Dharma realm is neither the self, nor man, nor woman; beyond anything perceivable, how can you think of it in that way? 25. Within phenomena, free of passion, you cannot see male and female. We teach these terms to tame those whom desire blinds. 26. The three designations of impermanence, suffering, and emptiness purify the mind; the teaching that nothing has any self-nature refines the mind to its utmost. 27. A child in a pregnant woman s womb, though not yet born, lives there. Obscured by afflictions, the Dharma realm remains unborn. 28. From thinking I and mine, and of their names and forms, and from the elements and composite phenomena, four conceptual patterns arise. 29. The Buddhas perceive no characteristics in their aspiration. The Buddhas are self-awareness with their own beginningless, pure being. - 4 -
30. Rabbits have no horns except in the imagination. Phenomena, mere projections, possess no inherent existence. 31. Even the horns of oxen, made of non-existent atoms, do not exist. Since atoms do not exist, can you believe something made from them exists? 32. Arising is a dependent phenomenon; cessation is a dependent phenomenon. Not one single thing exists how could the naive believe it does? 33. With examples like rabbits and oxen s horns, the One Thus Gone has proven that all phenomena are nothing other than the Middle Way. 34. You see forms of the sun, moon, and stars reflected in perfectly clear water; thus are signs and characteristics. 35. That virtuous in beginning, middle, and end is without deception, constant, and free from self. Can you truly surmise I or mine? 36. Water during the summertime seems warm; the same water in the winter seems cold. 37. All sentient beings, every one ensnared in the net of the afflictions, when freed of afflicted states become Buddhas. - 5 -
38. When eye and form assume their right relation appearances appear without a blur, neither arising nor ceasing in the Dharma realm. 39. When sound and ear assume their right relation, a hearing consciousness free of thought occurs. These three, the Dharma realm once free of characteristics, become hearing when thought of conceptually. 40. Dependent upon nose and odor, you smell. Neither arising nor ceasing exists, but in the nose-consciousness s experience, the Dharma realm becomes smell. 41. Both the tongue and taste have an empty nature in the Dharma realm and do not cause taste-consciousness. 42. The body s emptiness, and the empty characteristics of the touched object, the tactile consciousness free of conditions these are the Dharma realm. 43. Sense consciousnesses reporting to the mental consciousness become conceptualized and then superimposed on phenomena. Abandon this activity to cognize phenomena s lack of self-existence, meditating on the Dharma realm. 44. When yogis understand everything seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, and imagined in this manner, all their wonderful qualities consummate. 45. All six of perception s doors, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are utterly pure consciousnesses in suchness. - 6 -
46. The mind has two aspects: conventional, or world-transcending. Self-clinging produces cyclic existence and self-awareness leads to suchness. 47. Desire ceases in liberation, along with stupidity and anger, bringing Buddhahood, the refuge of ennobled beings. 48. You either proceed with knowledge or without cyclic existence and liberation both live in the body. Either your own thinking binds you, or knowing the true nature frees you. 49. Enlightenment, neither near nor far, neither goes away nor comes to you. Within the cage of your afflictions you either see it, or you do not. 50. Abiding in the lamp of wisdom will lead to the most sublime peace. Abide in examining self, as taught in sutra. 51. The ten strengths assist the immature with the full moon s blessing force. But caught in afflictions, beings fail to see the Thus Gone Ones. 52. Those in the hungry spirit realms see the sea as dry, those in ignorance s grip think the Buddhas do not exist. 53. For lesser beings and lesser merit, no matter what transcendent conquerors may do, they but place a precious jewel in the hands of the blind. - 7 -
54. For those amassing sufficient merit the signs radiate shining light. All thirty-two blaze with brilliant glory and these beings dwell in the presence of Buddhas. 55. The protectors inhabit bodily forms for many aeons, and many yet to come; to tame disciples they embody different activities in the taming expanse. 56. Consciousness engages its object, targeting its goal. In the purity of self-awareness abide the grounds of the Bodhisattvas. 57. The mighty Lords abide in the magnificent Akanistha heaven and consciousness, the object, and the goal blend into one, I dare to say. 58. This renders total knowledge for the immature and for noble ones affords variety. To the gods it grants long activity and causes life to span the long march of aeons 59. guarding the outer realm of beings, preserving their lives through countless aeons, causing the perseverance of life within all beings, 60. this endless cause of endless results. Realizing the end of perception dawns liberation in wisdom. 61. Do not consider enlightenment far off nor close at hand; when the six sense objects no longer appear, you know the genuine. - 8 -
62. Milk and water mixed inhabit the same container but a crane would drink the milk and not the water. Transformation functions similarly: 63. the afflictions cover primordial awareness, both together in one body. Yogis choose primordial awareness and leave ignorance behind. 64. Believing in the existence of I, mine and phenomena obviates the two forms of selflessness leaving the seeds of existence undestroyed. 65. The Dharma realm makes the ground for Buddhahood, liberation, purity, and permanence. The undeveloped impute two kinds of self but yogis abide without them. 66. In generosity you endure hardships, in ethical discipline you accumulate the benefit of beings, and through patience you perform the good of all. These three cause your potential to unfold. 67. Through diligence in the teachings, permeating your mind with meditative absorption, and comprehensive reliance on wisdom, enlightenment grows and flourishes. 68. Wisdom endowed with skillful means, prayers of aspiration that purify, the mastery of strengths, and thereby wisdom these four cause the potential to unfold. 69. Some say not to commit your mind to enlightenment, but without the progress of Bodhisattvas, the Dharma body remains out of reach. - 9 -
70. If you discard the sugarcane s seeds wishing to taste the fruit s sweetness you will have no sugar at all. 71. If you value sugarcane seeds, store them, cultivate them well, and you harvest a crop of sweetest sugar. Similarly, 72. through fully valuing the mind of enlightenment, keeping it, and cultivating it well, the ones liberated from birth and death and the solitary realizers arise as do the perfectly enlightened Buddhas. 73. The farmer treats seeds of rice and plants with great care. The guides of aspirants to the greatest journey treat them with supreme beneficence. 74. On the fourteenth day of waning, the moon barely shows. For aspirants to the greatest journey, the three Buddha bodies hardly exist. 75. The new moon grows larger bit by bit. Aspirants reaching the ten stages increasingly cognize the ultimate body. 76. On the fifteenth day of waxing the full moon reaches perfection. For aspirants achieving the final stage the ultimate body shines clear. 77. The mind of enlightenment, perfectly arisen through stable, consistent dedication to the Buddha, teachings, and spiritual community increases and develops further. - 10 -
78. When you relinquish the four bad actions of killing, stealing, unlawful sexual indulgence, and falsehood, and embrace the four right efforts of discarding evil, preventing evil, developing good, and promoting good, you realize thatness signifying the joyful stage. 79. Constant desire stains you with shifting patterns. Whoever has grown free becomes stainless. 80. A flawless wisdom shines through the afflictions torn net. The light purifies all darkness, removes it, and illuminates. 81. The light shines with the ultimate purity of primordial mind and eliminates diversion. It saturates, shining everywhere, in the stage of radiance. 82. This stage called difficult-to-overcome masters awareness, deeds, skills, and the meditative concentrations and vanquishes afflictions difficult to purify. 83. The directly-manifest stage includes the three enlightenments and perfects and completes all with no more birth nor disintegration. 84. The Bodhisattvas webs of brilliant light reach every point in their surroundings. The Ones who reach far have crossed cyclic existence s swampy ocean 85. with the Buddhas definitive guidance, become one with the sea of primordial awareness, now spontaneous and free of effort, and unshaken by the minions of illusion. - 11 -
86. Here in the stage of select-intelligence yogis have perfected dialectics used to teach all points with precise, correct awareness, 87. their body of primordial awareness an unpolluted sky. The Buddhas vigilance forms an omnipresent Dharma cloud. 88. The Dharma body comprises the ground of Buddhas qualities, the perfected transformation, with the fruits of training held in hand. 89. You may ponder cyclic existence s tendencies but freedom from them you cannot know. Who can have the power to know your inconceivable nature? 90. Beyond speech, beyond the senses grasp, self-realization requires the mind s awareness. I bow in praise of all you embrace. 91. The Buddhas illustrious heirs follow the path, step by step, in the primordial awareness of the Dharma cloud and see emptiness. 92. With their minds ultimately cleansed and cyclic existence s cage destroyed they assume their rightful place on a lotus flower seat, 93. surrounded by many tens of millions of lotus flowers endowed with tantalizing anthers, leaves alight with precious gems. - 12 -
94. The Buddhas never fall from simplicity s domain. Replete with the ten powers, their fearlessness sets others minds at ease. Their qualities are inconceivable. 95. Through excellently practicing all paths, they gather merit and reap complete wisdom, like the high harvest moon surrounded by the clustered stars. 96. The Buddha holds a flawless blazing gem in a sun-like hand and empowers the most senior heirs, this abhisheka ritual the greatest of them all. 97. The mighty yogis living on this plane view worldly beings with god-like eyes those frightened and distracted by suffering and inferior due to their mental blindness, 98. And seeing them, light shines in rays from their bodies without the slightest effort and opens up the gates there for all wandering in the darkness of their own confusion. 99. Those reaching liberation in their bodies believe they reach liberation without remainder, but the liberation reached in this tradition frees the mind of any flaw. 100. On this plane we encounter sentient beings free of substance and see the sovereign mind of enlightenment, the Dharma body free of flaw. - 13 -
101. See the Dharma body in its purity and transform into the sea of wisdom, where from the depths a wealth of precious jewels fulfills beings always wished-for needs. In Praise of the Dharma Realm composed by the great Acharya Nagarjuna is hereby completed. In cooperation with the Indian Khenpo, Krishna Pandita, it was translated (from Sanskrit to Tibetan) by Lotsawa Tsultrim Gyalwa. Based on teachings given by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, it has been translated from Tibetan into English by Jim Scott, April 1997, and edited by Ari Goldfield, September 1998. Also edited Leon Breaux 2010. - 14 -