Guest guest Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 Dear Robert, Thanks for sending us this beautiful work of art. Warm regards and best wishes, Alan > From Poetry Chaikhana > Sacred Poetry from Around the World > http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/Saraha/RoyalSongofS.htm > > > THE ROYAL SONG OF SARAHA (DOHAKOSA) > > HOMAGE TO ARYAMANJUSRI! > Homage to the destroyer of demonic power! > > The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers; > The king makes multifarious forms out of unity, > Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha. > > The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two; > The vision and the viewer are one, > You broken, brittle mind! > > Many lamps are lit in the house, > But the blind are still in darkness; > Sahaja is all-pervasive > But the fool cannot see what is under his nose. > > Just as many rivers are one in the ocean > All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth; > The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners. > > Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the > earth > And there is neither increase nor decrease; > Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky. > > Replete with the Buddha's perfections > Sahaja is the one essential nature; > Beings are born into it and pass into it, > Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it. > > Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad, > Hoping for mundane pleasure; > Your mouth is full of honey now, > Swallow it while you may! > > Fools attempt to avoid their suffering, > The wise enact their pain. > Drink the cup of sky-nectar > While others hunger for outward appearances. > > Flies eat filth, spurning the fragrance of sandalwood; > Man lost to nirvana furthers his own confusion, > Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar. > > The rain water filling an ox's hoof-print > Evaporates when the sun shines; > The imperfections of a perfect mind, > All are dissolved in perfection. > > Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet; > The venom of passionate reaction > In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir. > > The unutterable is free of pain; > Non-meditation gives true pleasure. > Though we fear the dragon's roar > Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest. > > The nature of beginning and end is here and now, > And the first does not exist without the last; > The rational fool conceptualising the inconceivable > Separates emptiness from compassion. > > The bee knows from birth > That flowers are the source of honey; > How can the fool know > That samsara and nirvana are one? > > Facing himself in a mirror > The fool sees an alien form; > The mind with truth forgotten > Serves untruth's outward sham. > > Flowers' fragrance is intangible > Yet its reality pervades the air, > Just as mandala circles are informed > By a formless presence. > > Still water stung by an icy wind > Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes; > In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts > The unformed becomes hard and intractable. > > Mind immaculate by nature is untouched > By samsara and nirvana's mud; > But just like a jewel lost in a swamp > Though it retains its lustre it does not shine. > > As mental sloth increases pure awareness diminishes; > As mental sloth increases suffering also grows. > Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches. > > Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind > The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms; > Who is more deserving of pity than he > Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open? > > Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace > The fool believes he knows ultimate truth; > He is like someone who stands at his door > And, flirting, talks about sex. > > The wind stirs in the House of Emptiness > Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure; > Fallen from celestial space, stung, > The tormented yogin faints away. > > Like a brahmin taking rice and butter > Offering sacrifice to the flame, > He who visualises material things as celestial ambrosia > Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality. > > Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle > Stroking the uvala in wanton delight, > Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual > release, > The vain fools calls himself a yogin. > > Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness, > He mistakes the lock for the key; > Ignorant of the true nature of the gem > The fool calls green glass emerald. > > His mind takes brass for gold, > Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished; > Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams > He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss. > > With a discursive understanding of the symbol EVAM, > Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment, > He labels his peak experience sahaja: > He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror. > > Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water > Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms > And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined, > They idealise their prison, pretending happiness. > > The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs, > And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind, > And this is the supreme,the highest of the high, > immaculate; > Friends, know this sacred high! > > In mind absorbed in samadhi that is concept-free, > Passion is immaculately pure; > Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom, > This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of > existence. > > Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream > And you attain transcendence, > Instantaneous realisation and equanimity; > A strong mind binding the demons of darkness > Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is > accomplished. > > Appearances have never ceased to be their original > radiance, > And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be > grasped; > It is a continuum of unique meditation, > In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is > no-mind. > > Thus the I is intellect, mind and mind-forms, > I the world, all seemingly alien show, > I the infinite variety of vision-viewer, > I the desire, the anger, the mental sloth - > And bodhicitta. > > Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness > Healing the splits riven by the intellect > So that all mental defilements are erased. > Who can define the nature of detachment? > > It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed, > And ungraspable it is inconceivable. > Through conceptualisation fools are bound, > While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja. > > The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring > integration; > Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom. > Cognition of radiance is strong meditation; > Abide in a calm, quiescent mind. > > Reaching the joy swollen land > Powers of seeing expand, > And there is joy and laughter; > Even chasing objects there is no separation. > > From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge, > Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure, > And so long as outflow is contained > Unutterable bliss will surely mature. > > What, where and by whom are nothing, > Yet the entire event is imperative. > Whether love and attachment or desirelessness > The form of the event is emptiness. > > Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire > But what can stain our pearly mind? > Nothing can ever contaminate it, > And by nothing can we ever be bound. > > > -------------------------- > > Buddhist 8th century poem, > translated by Kunzang Tenzin > > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > > > Stay connected to the people that > matter most with a smarter inbox. 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