There’s a great show going on here;
a grand movie.
There are wild dramas,
deaths and births, hopes and fears —
exotic creatures, strange technologies,
the rise and fall of entire civilizations.
The show never ceases.
When mind reaches out for this phantasmagoria,
investing them with ultimate solidity and reality,
this is akin to clutching at rainbows or battling a mirage.
Constricting, dividing concepts proliferate, equanimity shatters,
and the confusion of independent identity congeals with added vigor.
Suffering ensues. Ignorance. Samsara.
When, however, the yogin’s mind turns inwards to itself,
recognizing its own luminous and empty ground —
then, the confusion of division dissolves.
The entire vast array of appearances,
previously mistaken for distinct and solid objects
standing in relation to a central identity,
regains its inherent fluidity and freedom.
Still the show continues, but now unimpeded,
effortless, dynamically magical.
The dream of identities, categories, and separation collapses
into the playful display of empty appearing
indivisible from self-knowing space.
Thus, the unshakeable vajra-stability of mind’s source-nature is claimed.
Many varied sense impressions come and go in this openness;
the sky in which these clouds and rainbows dance remains
vast, untainted, and without beginning or end.
Oh, my fragile and confused mind,
please do not forget this truth.
Image by Sogard, England.