by
Je Tsong Khapa
I make prostrations to the reverend Lamas.
Let me explain as best I can
The path that is praised by holy bodhisattvas,
The entryway for the fortunate who aspire to liberation,
And very heart of all the Victor’s teachings.
O Fortunate Ones unattached to samsara’s pleasures
Who trust in the path that pleases the Buddhas,
Those intent upon lending meaning to this life of leisures and fortunes,
Please listen with your mind alert and clear.
Since embodied beings are bound in every way
by their thirst for cyclic existence,
And there’s no way to quell this yearning for the pleasurable fruits
of samsara’s ocean
Except by perfect renunciation,
It’s renunciation you must seek first of all.
Once you’ve habituated your mind to the fact that leisure and fortune
Are so hard won and know well that there’s surely no time to waste,
You’ll stop fantasizing about this life.
Then when you’ve pondered long enough over samsara’s many sufferings
And the infallibility of karma and its effects,
You’ll stop fantasizing about future lives as well.
When you’ve grown accustomed to thinking this way
So that the slightest desire for samsara’s happiness ceases to arise
in your mind even for an instant,
And liberation is your sole concern both night and day,
It’s only then that you’ve really gained true renunciation.
However, if that renunciation is not imbued
With perfect enlightenment mind,
It won’t become a cause for the blissful excellence of highest Buddhahood.
Hence the intelligent do all they can to engender supreme bodhichitta.
Look how mother beings are swept along by the torrential current
of Four Powerful Rivers,
Their lives bound by restraints of implacable karma!
See what an iron mesh of self-grasping ensnares them
With nothing but confusion and darkest ignorance their only consolation.
When you’ve pondered this pitiful inheritance of being
Incessantly tortured by the three types of suffering
In life after life after life of samsara without any end,
You’re sure to generate unsurpassed bodhichitta!
Though quite familiar with renunciation
and enlightenment mind,
Still you cannot sever the root of samsara
Without the wisdom that realizes the true nature of things.
So endeavor to cultivate the method for realizing dependent arising!
Whoever sees that the law of cause and effect in all phenomena
Of samsara and nirvana never fails,
And has done away with fixating on signs of true existence,
That one has entered the path that delights the Buddhas.
As long as appearances ―infallible dependent arisings
And emptiness free of assertions―
Appear to you as separate,
Still you have not grasped the Muni´s true intent.
When you perceive infallible dependent arising simultaneously
With the destruction of all modes of apprehension of true existence,
Only then have you gained true understanding
And completed the examination of the view.
Once you know how emptiness dawns as causes and effects,
And see how appearances eradicate the extreme view of absolute existence
And how emptiness does away with the nihilistic view,
You’ll never again be captivated by the lure of extremist views.
When you’ve understood these three critical
aspects of the path,
My son, gather your strength and effort
And go without delay to an isolated place
To accomplish the ultimate goals!
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Translation / Vincent Montenegro
