Lama Tsewang Rinpoche: The Heart Essence — My Heart’s Advice

01.May the youthful sun of speech, Mañjuśrī, in his enlightened form—with its signs and marks, embodying the secret body, speech and mind of all the infinite buddhas and their bodhisattva heirs—turn your minds towards the path to perfect awakening!

02.There are countless Dharma teachings, profound and extensive, suited to the mental capacities and inclinations of limitless beings. Yet, gathering all the key points in a way that can be practised, I offer this pithy advice to you, my friends, who are as dear as my own heart.

03.Should you be attached to this life you’ll have no chance to practise the Dharma. The more you indulge your desires, the more your craving will increase. Wealth, happiness, fame and praise—to pursue them is like buying and selling in a dream: let go of such concerns!

04.By relying on genuine, qualified spiritual teachers, your virtuous qualities will develop and increase, and all your faults and failings will be cast away. So serve them in the three ways, and accomplish others’ aims.

05.Just as gardens are not found growing in midair, all the bounties of the higher realms and liberation will never be yours as long as you lack moral discipline. So with mindfulness, awareness and caution, control your mind.

06.Up to now, you have wandered as if crazy and without a guide through the vast darkness of unknowing in beginningless existence. Now, to find the great palace of peace and happiness, take joy in studying the ocean-like teachings.

07.Hearing alone will not eliminate misconceptions, and confidence in teacher and teachings will not come easily. Through debating, explaining and composing, gather the elixir of mind that is the wisdom born of reflection.

08.Even erudite teachers with vast scriptural learning can repeat words like a parrot without taking them to heart. When death suddenly arrives this brings only regret, so rely on the essential meaning of the teachings, my heart-friends!

09.All the infinite teachings of the buddhas are imparted purely as a means to subdue our own mind. Don’t put your faith in words alone; let the key points of the deeper meaning seep into your hearts!

10.This physical existence is difficult to find, like an uḍumbara flower, yet more rewarding than a million precious gems. Such an opportunity will be difficult to find again, so do not let it pass without accomplishing the highest aim!

11.Our great enemy, the lord of death, arrives like lightning from the sky, and nobody can predict when or where he will strike. Do not wait months or years: now is the time for virtuous Dharma practice!

12.For all beings, actions do not go to waste but bear fruit, and when karma ripens there is no way to change its outcome. While you still have influence, if you deceive yourself, who then will protect you?

13.If merely thinking about saṃsāra’s unbearable sufferings causes you to shudder, ask what it will be like when body and mind actually undergo these countless forms of duḥkha.

14.Only the Three Jewels have the power to lead us from this terror; no one else could save us. Take them as refuge, for they are infallible, wise, compassionate and powerful.

15.All the three worlds’ misery comes from wanting happiness for ourselves, and all virtue and happiness is born of wishing others well. Following the teacher of gods and humans, generate the supreme mind set upon unsurpassed awakening.

16.When the crystal mirror of your mind is covered by the dust of adventitious defilements, profound and clear samādhi cannot appear. Clean it with the pure cloth of confession’s four powers.

17.All sights, sounds and awareness are deity, mantra and dharmatā; knowing this is how it has always been is the view. Without losing sight of this, take aim with meditation’s arrow and master the activities of eliminating harm and providing care.

18.If through breathing and physical postures you generate bliss, clarity and non-thought, you will master the illusory body of clear light. Allow the perfection stage to penetrate your mind.

19.When the darkness of the five degenerations prevails, the starlight of the eight lower yānas cannot banish it. Shine the sun of Nyingtik with its hundred thousand rays, drawn along by the swift carriage of the three kinds of faith.

20.Whatever arises, in pure awareness unaltered and unconfined, look into the mind that settles naturally. Recognize the natural clarity, always empty and without origin, and you will traverse the paths and stages and capture the fruition.

21.Leaving things as they are, through the right postures and gazes, if naturally manifesting space and light-spheres arise as pure awareness, dualistic perception will disappear in all-pervading space. Perfecting the four visions, you will achieve the body of light, the great transference.

22.What I have said here—plain talk arranged in verses—is my heart’s advice. Though it lacks poetic turns that delight intellectuals, as a spontaneous, unaltered outpouring from my mind, it follows the style of the vidyādharas of the Early Translations.

23.Through this merit, may all beings without exception gain perfect sovereignty over the kingdom of the four kāyas, and may I never be separated, even for a moment, from the fortitude of Mañjuśrī, the ever youthful!