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The Chapter on Direct Perceptionof Vajrasattva

from the Guhyagarbha-tantra

Samantabhadra and sentient beings are gathered indivisibly inimmaculate existential space, and in order to demonstrate experientiallythe direct perception of Vajrasattva's face, deliberately, Samantabhadraspeaks:

In direct perception of this mundane world, where things are never what theyseem, where all is delusory enchantment, like hallucination, seeing all andeverything as a continuity like the reflection of the moon in water, that is thebuddha's pristine awareness, and a flash of undivided recognition of thatgives us a unitary experience of total presence. A finger snap ofungrounded limitless space, in timeless existential space, the here andnow, that is Vajrasattva wielding an utterly inviolable vajra. When vision andconduct are in sync with direct perception, we see his face in the intrinsicpurity of the mandala.

That boundless existential space is oneself in a union of utter purity, andall is spontaneously awakened. Whoever experiences this realization he isseeing with the eye of pure awareness and he sees the immaculate matrixof being, and he is utterly inviolable, adamantine, imperturbable. Intrinsicexistential space radiates clear light which is the immaculate voice ofpristine being (sattva). In that recognition is direct perception of his face.

With this spontaneity of perfect equipoise, the mind is filled with themagnificent self-sprung mandala of the Five Tathagathas, the five aspectsof awareness, and in this unitary mind free of subject and objectcontemplating the buddhas' radiance as nothing at all, without seeing orhearing or any sensation, here is the clear light of pure awareness ofintrinsic presence and everything is realized as intrinsically empty and inreality there is no substance whatsoever.

Just as the victorious Buddha sat as a focus in the middle of the hosts ofMara all gathered around the bodhi tree, miserable in their state ofmalignancy trying to cut the tree but quite unable, so is Vajrasattva: whenoneself is at one with samadhi that is direct perception of the vajra-face.

The mind filled with Vajrasattva, samadhi saturated with radiance,everything becomes his vajra-nature, and since he is everything, nothingcan harm him; with oneself and sattva inseparable action accords withwhatever appears, and the vision and activity of oneself and sattva are oneand that is direct perception of the vajra-face.

Now, the immaculate mandala of reflected images: conjoined by meansof the coarse and tangible (thabs) apprehending sensory distinctions,perfect insight (prajna) is realized and the non-dual connection of meansand insight is sublime skilful means. All and everything as the space of thatmanifold insight, all appearances and existence, everything whatsoever,unmoving from the intrinsical here and now, are neither existent nor non-existent and their being and non-being are indivisible: all is gathered intothe space of existential sameness and such a communion never cominginto being, everything, in that way, inseparable from sameness, isinviolable. That is the abode of sattva and the supreme order who realizethat, their status in accord with sattva, they see directly the vajra-face.

All transforming illusion, the psycho-organism and the elements ofperception, is one in the suchness of the ground of being, and illusoryappearances, all reflected images, lack any substance in their very nature;yet that very absence of substance displays multiplicity: the five aspects ofthe psycho-organism are the Five Tathagathas, sense organs and

conciousnesses are the bodhisattvas, the objects and times are thegoddesses the four concepts of the self are the four wrathful maleguardians, the four extreme views of eternalism and nihilism are the fourwrathful female guardians. That awakened mind – known as intrinsicpresence – all as existential space, Samantabhadra, that is Vajrasattva.Whoever recognizes that, his buddha-mind in harmony with sattva, He seesthe vajra-face.

All things, all experience without exception, can be expressed byrepresentational name, word, letters and sound, but like all those letters,names and sounds nothing whatsoever has any substance. That veryabsence of substance appears as multiplicity, the nature of appearances isnothing at all; although there is a constant stream of creativity it is no-thingand that is immaculate. The utterly inviolable here and now is not insensatematter; it is radiantly clear light, and Vajrasattva abides there. Whoeverrecognizes that is a member of the supreme order, and indivisible from thevajra-order he has direct perception of the vajra-face.

The eminent man or woman with high creativity can realize the meaningof such universal identity; but the result is intangible, for the place in whichenlightened mind exists is like a womb or an egg. Although unreal,obscurations do arise, and just as in the process of their creation theydissolve so the forms of thought are abandoned instantaneously. In that wayhe is empowered by all things and he becomes a being of the sublimeorder.

Identical to Vajrasattva, the supreme siddhis are perfected in him; heattains the blissful pure land, supreme wisdom becomes his display, and heis an exemplar to gods and men; he is empowered in body speech andmind and whatever he imagines is actualized.

He is mastered by the four boundless states, his activity everywhere issupreme awareness of bliss, and he has reached the place where sufferinghas ceased – the suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death.

Reaching the supreme vajra-status, through the blessings of greatcompassion he leads all beings without exception into that vajra-order.

Annihilating the hosts of Mara, taming the passions impeccably he turnsthe wheel of dharma; to all beings without exception he teaches the natureof impermanence in a way compatible with their every path – to theshravakas the way of the arhat, to the bodhisattvas the way of the self-born,to the spontaneously originated buddhas of the unsurpassable approach,inviolable existential space. Without moving from intrinsic existential spacehe reveals to everyone immutability, and all paths without exception areaccomplished in that space.

Thus he spoke the vajra-secret word! The word spoken by himself tohimself!

The thirty first chapter: "Direct perception of Vajrasattva's face by high beings withcreative minds: from the gSang ba'i snying po de kho na nyid nges pa."

Translated by the Inje Nyomba Kunzang Tenzin at the behest of a sky-being in theOrgyen Tsamkhang in the City of Buda, this version finished during the auspicious visit ofChogyel Namkhai Norbu to the Kathmandu Valley, 21st September, 2000.

This text is taken from the rNying ma rgyud 'bum published in gTing skyes dGon pa inTibet by Dingo Khyentse Rimpoche, Thimbu 1973, Vol. 14, Pha, the sGyu 'phrul le'u lag(Maya Appendix), Chapter Thirty-one, "Zhal mthong gi le'u", pp. 534.1-537.6.