Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

52 Timeless Rapture
Hung! Hung!
The wheel of life and transcendence are inseparable,
Like waves and water.
Buddhas and sentient beings are nondual—
The difference between them is like poison [before and] after mantras
neutralize it.
The mind’s single nature appears in manifold ways,
Like crystal that changes color in different surroundings.
Myriad substances arise but are your own mind,
Like all rivers that have the same salty taste in the sea.
After you abandon everything real or imagined, original mind
remains,
Like a bird’s trace in the sky.
A single small lamp
Dispels one thousand years’ dense darkness.
Likewise, an instant of realization of your own mind
Disperses anger and desire’s dense fog in the wheel of life.
Contemplative practice that unites means and knowledge
Stills the waves of thought from existence’s sufferings.
A bright jewel placed in mud
Does not gleam, is formless, and neither comes nor goes.
As soon as realization of Great Seal arises,
The mind dilates to become as vast as the sky.
Clarity without thought is like space.
Appearances, without intrinsic nature, are like the moon on water.
Clarity without clinging is like a rainbow.
Like a young person’s pleasure, it is indescribable.
This is not localized and exceeds all bounds.