The Terton Karma Lingpa discovered the Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness on top of Mount Gampodar when aged 15, together with the text commonly known in the west as the Tibetan Book of the Dead – more correctly called Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State
The Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness is a Terma said to have been hidden by Padmasambhava, to be revealed in later ages when beings could benefit. What a treasure this teaching is.
Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness is a pointing out instruction text – every word points to Rigpa, that luminous emptiness that is the clear light nature of your mind.
I particularly love section 13 as I find it a profoundly clear direct pointing, which is at one and the same time that which is pointed to. I love to meditate with these verses.
This self-originated Clear Light, which from the very beginning was in no way produced by something antecedent to it, is the child of awareness, and yet it is itself without any parents – Amazing!
When we ‘see’ Rigpa we recognise what has been in front of our face all our lives, but which we couldn’t see, as we were transfixed and bewitched by the endless appearances of experience, which we took to be solid and real. Self-evidently real to us, so like thick dark clouds they utterly obscured the clear blue sky behind. Unlike that metaphor the dark clouds are also none other than clear blue sky! Nevertheless, we were entranced by the display.
When we see Rigpa we cut through to that which seems entirely beyond that display – a beyond time, beyond space, beyond changing, beyond characteristics ‘realm’ which rests in pristine purity.
Utterly empty, utterly still. Always there, yet clearly not caused by anything. Self-originated is the expression. We see, we know in the core of our being that this pristine purity hasn’t come from anywhere, and doesn’t go anywhere. It surrounds and enfolds all our transient experience, utterly untouched and untainted by the display.
Primordial purity.
Yet how clear this vast emptiness radiates a fundamental wakefulness, a luminosity that illumines and illuminates.
This basic wakefulness is also alpha pure, and seemingly untouched by the procession of impermanent display. Yet the appearances manifest from it – as it, inseparable from it.
When you rest in Rigpa you ‘see’ emptiness, you ‘see’ luminosity. You see their inseparability. Not one, not other, not other than either.
How do you know this Rigpa is self-originated? It’s so entirely direct and clear. I can’t really explain it in concepts. You could say it’s readily apparent in contrast to the impermanence and clear cause and effect of all that arises and ceases in the display of mind’s contents.
I can’t convince you of this logically, but Rigpa will show itself this way. This primordial clear light will be so obviously beyond time, beyond cause and be self-arisen, spontaneously there, always there, beyond there.
This self-originated primordial awareness has not been created by anything – Amazing!
When introduced to Rigpa you directly know this primordial awareness is somehow not like anything else in experience, which comes and goes as the result of being caused by something prior to it. Even if your years of meditation conditions you to see the arising and ceasing of dharmas in succession and to feel the connection and causal relationships there.
Yet this stands outside and beyond all that. No wonder sometimes people say transcendent!
Yet, and here’s the punch line – that which is above is also the nature of all that it was supposedly above! All that appears and is caused and is inpermanent is none other than this self-originated primordial awareness expressing itself – Amazing!
It does not experience birth nor does there exist a cause for its death – Amazing!
This mother clear light is so obviously outside of time. Time arises within it. Space arises within it. Outside of time, then how could it be caused and arise within time?
Like the paradoxes of physics, or big bang beginnings and then asking what existed before the big bang. Yet this is not a conceptual construct which taxes the conceptual mind. This direct pointing of Rigpa allows you to ‘see’ that which is primordially beyond time, primordially beyond cause. And knows no death. Deathless. Amazing!
Although it is evidently visible, yet there is no one there who sees it – Amazing!
Rigpa is the clear seeing of clear light nature, of luminous emptiness. Nothing is there, not in the sense of a thing which arises and ceases as a content of our mind.
When pointed out you cannot help feel how did I not see before? How close, how right there, how did I constantly look for something dramatic and new, something I must never have known before, this mysterious enlightenment.
You ‘see’ ‘it’, yet nothing is seen – it’s empty. Yet who does the seeing – not ‘you’! There’s no ‘me’ or ‘self’ that knows this Rigpa. In the seeing the see-er disappears, and this clear light stands supreme, without need of a knower. Self-knowing you could say, though that’s word-soup.
Self and the world have gone. Self and other no more. Those dreams have evaporated – the dualistic split which births endless suffering faded away.
In its place something so vast it’s beyond space. So primordially always it’s beyond time. What use for these midget ‘self’ and midget ‘world/other’?
What freedom there is in release from the dualistic dance of self and not-self. Recognising what’s always been there, yet nobody seeing it when seen. Amazing!
Although it has wandered throughout Samsara, it has come to no harm – Amazing!
The clear light hasn’t wandered through Samsara, like an entity within a time and place. If anything Samsara wandered through the clear light! Samsara and Nirvana appear due to knowing (Rigpa) or not knowing (Marigpa) this fundamental nature. They don’t depart from this innate clear light and they don’t depart from it. I used to imagine that Nirvana was entirely other from Samsara. That I’d get on the bus, and after the journey arrive at a destination that bore no resemblance to my start point. Yet how painful that dualistic projection, that led to so much suffering from seeking!
This primordial, formless clear light nature is untouched by Samsara, untouched by what arises and ceases. Untouched and untarnished, never affected or diminished. Whatever painful experiences arise in mind, the clear light never becomes less clear, never less light. Naked and pure.
Yet how ironic the suffering experiences are just that clear light, animated by clear light!
Despite the vast depths of human experience visiting the darkest hell-realms, this pure, luminous emptiness remains unharmed in its pristine purity. Amazing!
Even though it has seen Buddhahood itself, it has not come to any benefit from this – Amazing!
However high we go to the highest heavens, into Buddhahood itself, the clear light remains as-is, beyond space, beyond time, beyond come and go.
Even the shiniest gold doesn’t compare to the pristine purity of the primordial ‘state’. Nothing touches it, nothing changes it, yet it is all of those things, none other than those things.
Even though it exists in everyone everywhere, yet it has gone unrecognized – Amazing!
Look now at your mind – look now!
Don’t look for something great, something in experience, something solid. Rest back, open out, let go – and let Rigpa arise.
And when it arises you will be amazed, that this primordial purity of clear light was so close to you all along, whispering it’s message, though you were deaf to its message.
Deaf and blind. Amazing!
Nonetheless, you hope to attain some other fruit than this elsewhere – Amazing!
The desire to create awakening had been so strong. The desire to go beyond suffering. It must be elsewhere, it must be transcendent. This marvel that is Buddhahood – it must surely be entirely beyond all that I had known?
One of that amazing experiences you have when something shifts, something is seen. The lights, the energy release, the universe shakes.
They come and go, and they aren’t it. Just a release that happens when the ground is recognised, in whatever degree.
But this Ground is the Fruit, when clearly seen.
And it remains unchanged by the seeing. Though you seem to be. Though you aren’t changed fundamentally.
The seeing makes all the difference, living from it is the path. Stabilising the resting in this recognition of what is, what’s beyond ‘is’.
Seeing, recognising, resting, stabilising.
The fruit is where you started, though you never knew. Amazing!
Even though it exists within yourself and nowhere else, yet you seek for it elsewhere – Amazing!
You could have told me this a million times, and I’d never have got it. Either it must be far away, so far beyond.
Or this is it, say some of the teachings, yet mired in suffering how can this be it?
The beyond is an imagination, Buddhahood a made up realm.
The now can only be imagined as Buddhahood, a mind game that still leaves you suffering.
Yet once you see Rigpa the end and start points reveal their equality. Empty and luminous, Ground and Fruition.
Too easy, too close, too good, too deep.
Like the beggar with the jewel hidden in their robes, you look elsewhere, feeling bereft, and dwelling in poverty.
Who knew it was right here, innate and inherent? This mother clear light that is what you are.
Primordial purity. Spontaneous presence.
Right in front of your face. It is your very face.
Amazing!
Amazing!
Amazing!!!!
This self-originated Clear Light, which from the very beginning was in no way produced by something antecedent to it, is the child of awareness, and yet it is itself without any parents – Amazing!
This self-originated primordial awareness has not been created by anything – Amazing!
It does not experience birth nor does there exist a cause for its death – Amazing!
Although it is evidently visible, yet there is no one there who sees it – Amazing!
Although it has wandered throughout Samsara, it has come to no harm – Amazing!
Even though it has seen Buddhahood itself, it has not come to any benefit from this – Amazing!
Even though it exists in everyone everywhere, yet it has gone unrecognized – Amazing!
Nonetheless, you hope to attain some other fruit than this elsewhere – Amazing!
Even though it exists within yourself and nowhere else, yet you seek for it elsewhere – Amazing!
Verse 13 – Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness
Karma Lingpa / Padmasambhava
Original source: Shambhala Books
