Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

134 Timeless Rapture
Gyagom, sanctuary I do not search for elsewhere,
In you I take refuge with undivided attention.
Father, unerring spiritual master,
Make the mind of this, your only child, turn to the Teachings.
By engaging in worldly thoughts and deeds,
My body seems venerable, but my mind is shameful.
I am a pretentious person who has a spiritual title.
Look to me with compassion; be my guide!
Although I seem to have understood the wheel of life’s natural faults,
My mind is always distracted in useless, ordinary activity.
Doubts run away with my mind, while my body stays behind in
retreat.
It would be best for me to rid my mind of doubts, wouldn’t it?
Please watch over me with your wisdom!
In my condition as a person with a truly coarse character,
I don’t turn away from inconsequential activity.
I only cheat and deceive myself.
My father, doesn’t this move you to tears?
In the artifice of teachings intellectually understood
And in knowledge of arts and sciences,
I take an idiot’s delight.
I can’t turn toward that which concerns meditation.
Father, don’t you think about this?
My ordinary intellect, gate for the arising of karma, is not exhausted.
I have not rid myself of my character, a swamp of cyclic life.
I do not attend to my present consciousness.
This is a long song of negativity.
To concern myself with examining the study and training
Of this false effigy of a monk is a mistake.
To entertain positive or negative thoughts of attachment
Toward the ephemeral appearance of purity’s pleasing qualities is a
low concern.