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 Excerpts
From Commentary on
NO
BIRTH, NO BASE AND UNION, PART III
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- - - - - -
by
Venerable Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche
In this
commentary on Milarepa's song, No Birth, No Base and Union,
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche elaborates on "the true
nature of appearances." In Part I of this three-part
series, Khenpo Rinpoche establishes that appearances are beyond
birth and have no base for their seeming arising. Their actual
nature is the inseparability of clarity and emptiness. Part
III continues with an examination of these two essential points
of mind: radiant clarity and emptiness, or freedom from all
elaborations. In this concluding section, Khenpo Rinpoche
transmits the profound teachings on the four unions and describes
the nonconceptual and conceptual awarenesses that "transcend
ordinary mental operations." Finally, the natural, effortless
flow of realization dawns in our experience when we are completely
at ease and relaxed-"the greatest miracle!"
Whatever
thoughts or concepts arise in our minds, whatever they may
be, all are "the greatest bliss." The reason for
this is that the true nature, the basic reality, of any thought
is luminous clarity. That luminous clarity is the same as
awareness. That awareness is great bliss.
In his
song, "No Birth, No Base and Union," Milarepa sings
(verse 5):
Whatever
arises is the greatest bliss
Its nature is simplicity, the dharmakaya expanse
The six dependent appearances are empty naturally
And as
Milarepa sang in "The Three Nails,"
All
thoughts in being dharmakaya are free
and
Awareness
is luminous, in its depths is bliss
Here,
Milarepa is teaching us that clarity, awareness, and bliss
are different names for the same thing. They are different
"conceptual reverses" or "isolates," but
in essence they are exactly the same. (1)
The
Four Unions
Appearance
and Emptiness
Traditionally, four types of union are presented. These are
the union of appearance-emptiness, clarity-emptiness, bliss-emptiness
and awareness-emptiness. Generally, the term "union"
refers, first, to the union of appearance and emptiness. This
union means that while things appear, they are empty at the
same time; and although they are empty, things still appear.
Appearance and emptiness are undifferentiable. This is the
union of appearance and emptiness.
Appearance,
emptiness-these are two different reverses; they mean different
things to the conceptual mind that thinks about them. When
we think about appearance, we think of it from a positive
perspective, from the perspective of something actually existing
or from the perspective of affirming something. On the other
hand, we think of emptiness from the perspective of negating
something, from the perspective of nonexistence. Thus, appearance
and emptiness seem to be different; they appear differently
to the conceptual mind, even though in essence they are undifferentiable.
The reason is that these two ideas-appearance and emptiness-are
just that; they are simply ideas. They are simply imagined
by the mind; they are something imagined by conceptuality
and nothing more, therefore, in essence there is no difference
between them.
Milarepa
also sang in "The Eight Kinds of Mastery,"
Not
separating appearance and emptiness
This is view as mastered as it can be
When one
has certainty in the reality of appearance and emptiness undifferentiable,
that is as good a view as one can have. That is "view
as mastered as it can be."
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(1)
The Tibetan word ldog pa literally means "to return"
or "to go back." In the context of how mind relates
to the objects it knows conceptually, "reverse"
refers to the image of some phenomenon that appears to a conceptual
consciousness thinking about that phenomenon. Conceptual consciousnesses
think about objects through the route of exclusion. They get
at their objects by excluding everything that is not the object
rather than by gathering together everything that is the object.
This process of exclusion is described by saying that what
appears to a conceptual consciousness is an appearance opposite
to or reversed from that which is not the object. For example,
if one thinks of a bicycle, the image of the bicycle in one's
mind is the "reverse" of that which is not a bicycle.
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