Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

132 Timeless Rapture
There, the human form blazing with the radiance of melting and bliss
Is that of great Buddha Vajra Bearer, Gyagom Lekpa Gyaltsen.
Master, you are inseparable from the primordial basis,
But you momentarily appear clothed in the veil of concealed tantric
discipline.
Fortunate persons see you directly as you are, do they not?
You appear like a lamp hidden in a vase.
In the past, my karmic affinity was not insignificant.
From a young age, I fully [realized phenomena to be] illusion’s
display.
Although I saw the mother dakini’s lovely face,
My mind wasn’t satisfied; it was just illusion’s guise.
When I first saw the vase of my spiritual father Lekpa Gyaltsen’s face,
All my hesitations were freed by themselves.
At that time a single certainty without any doubt was born,
And it remains unchanged.
In meditation, my attachment to postmeditative attainment
dissolved.
I forgot the distinction between meditation sessions and intervals.
My affirmations and denials—”This is” and “This isn’t”—collapsed.
I lost my bias toward those near or far, self or other.
As soon as all-pervasive great luminosity of clarity and emptiness
Arose in the mirror of my innate awareness,
I gained confidence that the terms used for analysis and commentary
Would be there when I needed them.
Lord, if you aren’t one endowed with wisdom,
How is it that you made a fool like me wise?
If you aren’t one imbued with blessing,
How has my realization and liberation appeared?
Now, even if the buddhas of the three times arrived,
I would have nothing more to ask them.