Sky empty and luminous
beyond all attachments,
Remains.
Me, the setting sun
resplendent with light,
Will not remain at all.I pass behind the western summit
Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol
To reappear again soon,
Above the mountains of the east.
Rainbows Appear: Tibetan Poems of Shabkar
Translated by Matthieu Ricard
Every once in a while I come across a Dharma song that cuts straight through me, and leaves me in a state of rest in minds nature, in all its aspects. This is one such song.
How perfectly Lama Shabkar, the incomparable Yogi Shabkar, points directly to this Primordial Ground, empty as it is, luminous as it is, yet overflowing with expressiveness it is.
Sky empty and luminous
Sky empty and luminous
beyond all attachments,
Remains.
How beautifully expressed this is. This nature of mind, pure, primordially pure. Utterly ungraspable. Empty. Wide open like the sky or space.
Look now at your mind – do you see this empty sky-like nature?
Yet it’s not just empty and ungraspable. At one and the same time, and without negating this utter groundlessness, there is this knowingness. This basic knowingness, which is the luminosity.
How wonderful the metaphor – luminous like the sky.
Look now at your mind. Do you see this vivid clarity, this sky like luminosity?
This pristine purity of mind, luminous emptiness, is entirely beyond all attachments, beyond any conceptualisation, beyond anything that could stain or affect it in any way.
This empty luminosity is ever there, primordially present, beyond time and beyond space. Ever remaining.
Look now – do you see it?
Me, the setting sun
Me, the setting sun
resplendent with light,
Will not remain at all.
How skillfully Shabkar points to that which we usually identify with – that which comes and goes, and calls it ‘me’. That’s what we do, endlessly, despite the ceaseless flow of appearances. This is me, this is me, I am this. I feel this. I am this.
All these appearances are just that – empty appearances. Not the solid objects that the unawake mind takes them to be. Solid and congealed. Dense and fabricated. They are truly none other than the empty luminosity itself, no less empty than minds nature, despite their intoxicating display of manifestation.
But one thing is for sure, these appearances will not remain. They arise and cease. They are caused and then fade. Leaving nothing behind.
Appearances are this way.
And our lives are this way.
However resplendent with light our particular life lit up the world. It will not remain. However tough our lives and experiences seemed to be. It will not remain.
And eventually there would be nobody there who would even know of our previous existence. Gone, gone, truly gone.
I pass behind the western summit
I pass behind the western summit
To reappear again soon,
Above the mountains of the east.
As our body and mind fades and dies, we metaphorically set in the West, like the setting sun. Our power waning until they cease.
When we die we take rebirth again, like the sun rising in the East. And the magical display plays out again.
Empty, luminous display
Yet we know we are both – the
Sky empty and luminous
beyond all attachments,
Remains.
And we are
Me, the setting sun
resplendent with light,
Will not remain at all“
How marvelous this is! We are deathless and pure. Already complete and perfect. Untouched by time.
And we are the endless parade of conditioned appearances. Dancing away. Good and bad. Happy and sad. Pleasant and not so much so.
Look at your mind. Do you see? We are both.
Not that they are two. They are not separate. Nondual.
Who’d have thought this is what we are, this is how things are, just this way?
Look now.
