Resolution of doubts on the isolation of speech (Chapter Three)

CMP 3.1

The great jewel of five colors, only about the size of a mustard seed, one should always cultivate with effort at the tip of the nose through yoga. Thus [it is said].

CMP 3.2

[Cultivate] the breath as consisting of the five knowledges and having the nature of the five elements.

CMP 3.3

Having let it issue forth, one should imagine the great jewel of five colors in condensed form at the tip of the lotus-nose; this is remembered as prāṇāyāma (breath-control).

CMP 3.4

Then the Blessed One, the Great Vajra-holder, replied to the one who was expounding the meaning of the vajra-recitation, after the Teacher of the world had duly paid homage [to him].

CMP 3.5

This bodhicitta that has been revealed is only of mundane import (laukika (worldly, conventional)).

CMP 3.6

How then will those still to come [in the future] realize the transcendent (lokottara (supramundane, world-transcending)) [bodhicitta]?

CMP 3.7

The Dharma was indeed taught by you for the abandonment of all [false] views; how then is bodhicitta [taught such that] that very view is firmly fixed [again]?

CMP 3.8

Bewildered by the intentional, twilight language (saṃdhyābhāṣā (intentional, coded twilight-language of tantra)), they do not understand the meaning that is spoken; they grasp it just as it sounds, and accordingly they [merely] cook [their own confusion / ripen ill results].

CMP 3.9

Then the all-pervading Blessed One would say to Vajrapāṇi: "Excellent, excellent, O Lord of Secrets! By you the [need of those] to come [in future] has been [well] explained."

CMP 3.10

Bodhicitta is the wind, abiding in space, the very life-breath of beings, fivefold in nature and bearing ten names.

CMP 3.11

It is called the twelve-membered [chain of] dependent [origination]; by [its own] nature it becomes threefold. This, foremost of all the faculties, is the bodhicitta termed "wind."

CMP 3.12

Unmanifest, it is thus [called] subtle; [manifest,] it is called manifest. Resting upon it, a person performs deeds and engages objects and the rest.

CMP 3.13

[The rites of] pacifying, increasing, and likewise subjugating and fierce [magic]—all that [proceeds] from bodhicitta, from [its] resting upon the abode of the three realities.

CMP 3.14

And however many varied conventional designations of "light" (āloka (the inner radiances/lights of the dissolution sequence)) are imagined, they arise from bodhicitta; the conceptual constructions always [arise] from the wind.

CMP 3.15

The phenomenon of pleasure, pain, and the rest is produced from the [same] seed alone; this has the nature of bodhicitta, comparable to the [primordial] non-duality of the aggregates and the rest.

CMP 3.16

Through the single union of wisdom and means (prajñopāya (the union of insight (prajñā) and method (upāya))), bodhicitta becomes [the whole] world.

CMP 3.17

The master should recite [it] by himself, free of [discursive] meditation and study.

CMP 3.18

By the division of day and night, through the conjunction of moon and sun, the out-breath, pervading the world, is the one wind that is bodhicitta.

CMP 3.19

Having abandoned the fruit, good and ill, it becomes indeed space-like. Thus [it is said].

CMP 3.20

[Knowing] those named prāṇa, apāna, samāna, udāna, and vyāna, and [the five lesser winds] Nāga, Kūrma, Kṛkara, Devadatta, and Dhanañjaya—

CMP 3.21

—having made this image of oneself and then having generated the reality of the consort. Thus [it is said].

CMP 3.22

[The recitation-syllables/cyclic permutations:] koṭākṣa, koṭava, koṭa, koṭābha, and koṭīraka; kolākṣa, kolāva, kola, kolābha, and likewise kali. [These are the cycled phonemes of the vajra-recitation.]

CMP 3.23

Arising from the aperture of the nose, abiding in the five buddha-families, the fivefold wind, moving upward, courses through the body without cease.

CMP 3.24

From its conventional coursing through the nostril, issuing out from that door, these are fourfold: [those of] the left, the right, the pair [of both together], and the still [or blocked].

CMP 3.25

From the right, the element flows forth as the maṇḍala of fire; this red-colored mouth [-aspect], of the Lotus Lord [Amitābha], courses [there].

CMP 3.26

And from the left, the element flows forth, issued from the maṇḍala of wind, green and dark-hued; that of the Action Lord [Amoghasiddhi] courses [there].

CMP 3.27

The flow of the pair is the element of golden color, [together] with its triple [aspect], and the maṇḍala of earth (Mahendra); that of the Jewel Lord [Ratnasambhava] courses [there].

CMP 3.28

The still one [has] no outward flow; in a moment [it becomes] the water-maṇḍala (Vāruṇa); resembling pure crystal, that of the Vajra Lord [Akṣobhya] courses [there].

CMP 3.29

Having drawn up the whole element, held as both container and contained, the great body of Vairocana issues forth at the moment of death.

CMP 3.30

This [recitation of] the four maṇḍalas one should recite always, concentrated; the recitation of mantra-practitioners goes on continuously day and night, by the [proper] count of recitation.

CMP 3.31

He who, [counting] from one up through nine, is not bound by the ten—him one should know as unbound; he knows the supreme state.

CMP 3.32

The vowel- and consonant-phonemes, conforming to the number nine, in their unbound mutual combination—he who knows them is the Teacher of the world.

CMP 3.33

He who, having awakened, desires the attainment, the wealth of the fruit of liberation—he, formless, attains that very [goal] which is free of form.

CMP 3.34

Conjoined with the terminal element, abiding in the sixteen [phases] beginning with the first digit (kalā), joined with the set of five fives, and yoked with the three [or four]—

CMP 3.35

—with the nasal anusvāra and with the long [vowel], subject to the conjunction and elision of the grade-vowel (guṇa), the whole [recited] utterance would be short, neither manifold nor single.

CMP 3.36

By the meaning of the syllable ya, whatever is to be done is to be done by one who desires attainment; by the triad beginning with the r-sound (repha), the activity of the world proceeds.

CMP 3.37

The phonemes that are spoken from behind, and those again that face forward—these, [classed as] feminine, masculine, and neuter, are constructed [in correspondence] with the elements and the rest.

CMP 3.38

Joined below and above, known and applied with [discerning] intellect—what is taught by the six [is born] from the four, three, and one, [and is itself] born of the single existent that is without inherent nature.

CMP 3.39

Having yoked [the syllables] in the meaning of the first [triad] and the rest, the knowledge of the three times arises; like a dream or a magical illusion, having dispelled [the duality], one would [recognize/perform] the world within the triple realm.

CMP 3.40

This mantra is a withdrawal [of the senses] (pratyāhāra), born of a nature that is without inherent nature; the form transformed from it is what brings about the apprehension of the deity.

CMP 3.41

Conventional, abiding in the three realities, having the character of the recitation [arising from one's own] nature—this is the supreme bodhicitta, unnameable and unutterable.

CMP 3.42

That very [bodhicitta] would be the triad-as-one, without going forth and without coming, unceasing and wholly at peace, free of eternalism and annihilationism.

CMP 3.43

Its conceptual construction undone by the knower of the three times, having the character of non-difference from space—this indeed is the ultimate, having the character of being known each for oneself (pratyātmavedya (to be realized inwardly, each for oneself)).

CMP 3.44

In all activities indeed, in sitting and the rest, the knower of yoga should always recite [it]—the unnameable, the unutterable, [that which is] beyond the three times.

CMP 3.45

The recitations beginning with Pāṇḍarā are taught [to number] two hundred twenty-five; correctly multiplied by four, with the fourfold yoke, [they make] nine hundred.

CMP 3.46

And the nine hundred that is observed, with [its] twenty-four circuits, becomes—through their re-arising—twenty-one thousand six hundred [breaths per day].

CMP 3.47

Thus, in secret twilight-intention, the subtle yoga has been revealed; though free of [discursive] meditation and study, it is nonetheless called "recitation."

CMP 3.48

The syllable A is the foremost of all phonemes, of great import, the supreme imperishable; it is the great life-breath, the very non-arising, free of vocal articulation; it is the foremost cause of all expression, the radiant clear-light (prabhāsvara (clear light, luminosity)) of all speech. Thus [it is said].

CMP 3.49

[Cultivate] in the center of the heart the unstruck [sound], blazing like a lamp—the supreme, subtle imperishable, the syllable A, the supreme Lord. Thus [it is said].

CMP 3.50

These dharmas are designated through the sounding of words; yet neither dharma nor word is apprehended herein. And [only] by descending into the unity [of things], into [their true] dharma-nature, will one touch the unsurpassed, supreme acceptance (kṣānti). Thus [it is said].

CMP 3.colophon

[Here ends] the third chapter, the resolution of doubts about the integration [of the stages, concerning] the isolation of speech (vāgviveka (isolation of speech, a completion-stage phase)). // 3 //