by HH Wishfulfilling Jewel
Jigme Phuntsok Jungne
May the youthful sun of
speech, Manjushri, 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!
There are countless Dharma
teachings, profound and extensive,
Suited to the mental
capacities and inclinations of limitless beings,
Yet, by gathering all the
key points together in a way that can be practised,
I offer this pithy advice
to you, my friends, who I hold as dear as my own heart.
Becoming attached to this
life, you will lose your fortunate connection to the
Dharma.
Indulging your desires
again and again, your craving will only increase,
And you will never find
satisfaction. Wealth, happiness, fame and praise—
To pursue them is like
buying and selling in a dream. Let go of such concerns!
By relying on a genuine
and qualified teacher,
Your spiritual qualities
will develop and increase,
And all your faults and
failings will be cast away,
So serve him in the three
ways[1][1]
and others’
aims will be accomplished.
Just as gardens are not to
be 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.
Up to now, you have
wandered like madmen lacking any guidance,
Through the vast darkness
of unknowing in beginningless existence.
So now, in order to find
the great sanctuary of peace and happiness,
It is right that you take
joy in studying the vast ocean of excellent teachings.
Yet hearing alone will not
be enough to eliminate misconceptions,
And confidence in the
teacher and teachings will not come easily,
So take advantage of
hundreds of debates, teachings and compositions,
And rely upon the elixir
of mind that is the wisdom born of reflection.
Even the most erudite of
teachers with vast scriptural learning,
Can repeat words like a
parrot, without taking them to heart,
But when death suddenly
arrives, this will bring only pangs of regret,
So rely on the essential
meaning of the teachings, my heart-friends!
All the infinite teachings
of the buddhas, so vast in number,
Are imparted purely as a
means to subdue our own minds.
Don’t put your faith in
words alone! I urge you once again:
Let the key points of the
deeper meaning seep into your hearts!
This physical existence is
difficult to find, like an udumvara flower,
Yet more rewarding than
the discovery of a million precious gems.
It will be incredibly
difficult to find another opportunity like this later
on,
So don’t let it pass you
by without accomplishing the highest purpose!
Our great enemy, the lord
of death, arrives like a bolt of lightning in the sky,
And nobody can predict
when and where he will strike next.
So you can not afford to
wait for months and years.
Now is the time for
virtuous practice—right here, right now!
For all beings, actions
will not go to waste, but will bear their fruit,
And when karma ripens,
there is no way to change its outcome.
So now, while you are
fortunate enough still to have some control,
If you insist on bringing
ruin upon yourself, who will ever save you!
If merely thinking of the
various sufferings of samsara,
Which are so unbearably
intense, can make you shudder,
Ask yourself: What will it
be like when body and mind
Are actually afflicted by
these countless forms of duhkha?
Only they have the power
to lead us out of this great terror,
So extremely difficult to
escape. No one else could ever save us!
So we should take these
three most precious jewels as our refuge,
For they are undeceiving,
wise, compassionate and powerful.
All the suffering of the
three worlds comes from wanting happiness for ourselves,
And all virtue and
happiness is born of a mind that wishes others well.
So, following the example
of the teacher of all gods and men,
You should generate the
supreme and unsurpassed bodhichitta.
When the glass mirror of
your own mind is completely covered over,
With the thick layer of
dust that is the adventitious defilements,
It is difficult for the
reflection of profound and clear samadhi to appear,
So take pains to wipe it
clean using the pure cloth of the four powers.
All appearance, sound and
awareness are deity, mantra and dharmata.
And the view is knowing
that this is how it always has been.
Without losing this view,
take aim with the arrow of your meditation,
And gain mastery over the
practices of elimination and development.
If you can generate bliss,
clarity and non-thought as means of support,
Through the techniques of
breathing and adopting physical postures,
You will come to master
the illusory body of clear light,
So penetrate to the core
of enlightened mind through the perfection stage.
When the darkness of the
five degenerations prevails,
It is not easily overcome
with the starlight of the eight lower yanas,
So shine the brilliant
light of the sun of Nyingtik with its countless rays,
All drawn along by the
swift carriage of the three kinds of faith!
Whatever arises, in pure
awareness, unaltered and unconfined,
Look into the mind that is
settled by itself, resting naturally.
If you recognize the
natural clarity, always empty and without origin,
You traverse the paths and
stages all at once, and seize the stronghold of the
fruition.
Resting in a state of
just-as-it-isness, through the right postures and gazes,
If you experience the
natural manifestation of basic space and spheres of light as pure
awareness,
The darkness of samsara’s
dualism will disappear in absolute space,
And, passing through the
four visions, you will reach maturity in the light body of great
transference.
What I have said here—this
plain talk arranged in verses—is my heart’s advice.
Although it lacks the
poetic turns of phrase that might delight the
intellectuals,
As a spontaneous and
unaltered outpouring from the depths of my mind,
It is in the preferred
style of the vidyadharas of the old translation school.
Through the merit of this,
may all beings without exception
Receive the supreme royal
empowerment of the four kayas,
And may I never be
separated, even for a moment,
From the courageous
strength of youthful Manjushri!
In China, at the solitary
place of Wu Tai Shan (The Five-Peaked Mountain), on the peak where
the supreme deity, the youthful Manjushri, turned the wheel of the
profound and vast Dharma for tens of thousands of bodhisattvas, the
one with unparalleled power of speech and intelligence (Khenchen
Jikmé Phuntsok) set down in twenty-three minutes whatever came to
mind. May it be virtuous!
Translated by
Adam Pearcey, 2005. Thanks to Lama Chökyi Nyima for his kind
assistance and to Matthew Pistono for his encouragement.
[1]
Physical offerings, offering of service and offering of one's
practice.