The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

162 THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINGdark nest. All limitations dissolve and fall away, as if, theTibetans say, a seal were broken open.Imagine you were living in a house on the top of a mountain,which was itself at the top of the whole world. Suddenlythe entire structure of the house, which limited your view, justfalls away and you can see all around you, both outside andinside. But there is not any "thing" to see; what happens hasno ordinary reference whatsoever; it is total, complete,unprecedented, perfect seeing.Dudjom Rinpoche says: 'Your deadliest enemies, the oneswho have kept you tied to samsara through countless livesfrom beginningless time up until the present, are the graspingand the grasped." When the master introduces and you recognize,"These two are burned away completely like feathers ina flame, leaving no trace." Both grasping and grasped, what isgrasped and the grasper, are freed completely from their verybasis. The roots of ignorance and suffering are severed utterly.And all things appear like a reflection in a mirror, transparent,shimmering, illusory, and dream-like.When you naturally arrive at this state of meditation,inspired by the View, you can remain there for a long timewithout any distraction or special effort. Then there is nothingcalled "meditation" to protect or sustain, for you are in thenatural flow of the wisdom of Rigpa. And you realize, whenyou are in it, that is how it has always been, and is. When thewisdom of Rigpa shines, not one shadow of doubt canremain, and a deep, complete understanding arises, effortlesslyand directly.All the images I have given and the metaphors I have triedto use you will discover to be fused in one all-comprehensiveexperience of truth. Devotion is in this state, and compassionis in this state, and all the wisdoms, and bliss, clarity, andabsence of thoughts, but not separate from one another, allintegrated and linked inextricably with each other in one taste.This moment is the moment of awakening. A profound senseof humor wells up from within, and you smile in amusementat how inadequate all your former concepts and ideas aboutthe nature of mind were.What springs from this is a growing sense of tremendousand unshakable certainty and conviction that "this is it": Thereis nothing further to seek, nothing more that could possibly behoped for. This certainty of the View is what has to be deepenedthrough glimpse after glimpse of the nature of mind, andstabilized through the continuous discipline of meditation.