Maitripa's Essential Mahamudra Verses
- Translated into English by Nicole Riggs -
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.
That's Mahamudra, as we call it.
It doesn't have an identity to show;
For that reason, the nature of mind
Is itself the very state of Mahamudra
(Which is not made up, and does not
change).
If you realize this basic reality
You recognize all that comes up, all that
goes on,
as Mahamudra,
The all-pervading dharma-body.
Rest in the true nature, free of fabrication.
Meditate without searching for dharma-
body—
It is devoid of thought.
If your mind searches, your meditation will
be confused.
Because it's like space, or like a magical
show,
There is neither meditation or non-
meditation,
How could you be separate or inseparable?
That's how a yogi sees it!
Then, aware of all good and bad stuff as the
basic reality,
You become liberated.
Neurotic emotions are great awareness,
They're to a yogi as trees are to a fire—
FUEL!
What are notions of going or staying?
Or, for that matter, "meditating" in
solitude?
If you don't get this,
You free yourself only on the surface.
But if you do get it, what can ever fetter
you?
Abide in an undistracted state.
Trying to adjust body and mind won't
produce meditation.
Trying to apply techniques won't produce
meditation either.
See, nothing is ultimately established.
Know what appears to have no intrinsic
nature.
Appearances perceived: reality's realm,
self-liberated.
Thought that perceives: spacious
awareness, self-liberated.
Non-duality, sameness [of perceiver and
perceived]: the dharma-body.
Like a wide stream flowing non-stop,
Whatever the phase, it has meaning
And is forever the awakened state—
Great bliss without samsaric reference.
All phenomena are empty of intrinsic
nature
And the mind that clings to emptiness
dissolves in its own ground.
Freedom from conceptual activity
Is the path of all the Buddhas.
I've put together these lines
That they may last for aeons to come.
By this virtue, may all beings without
exception
Abide in the great state of Mahamudra.
Colophon
This was Maitripa's Essential Mahamudra
Instruction (in Tibetan: Phyag rgya chen po
tshig bsdus pa), received from Maitripa
himself and translated by the Tibetan
translator Marpa Chökyi Lodrö.
© Nicole Riggs 1999. Reproduction
welcome
if not for profit and with full
acknowledgement.
Sarva Mangalam!
May all beings be happy!