The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 137
There are both orderings and choices among the possibilities of
combination of these experiences, reading the diagram either horizontally
or vertically, but here we briefly follow a single path to enlightenment
and examine the unfolding of the Clear Light of Emptiness.
As Lozang ch'ochi nyima (1732-1802) writes: 199
Although the Clear Light and Emptiness are two, they are not
separate: Emptiness is the nature of mind, and the Clear Light
is found in the shifting interstices of the seeker of Emptiness.
Hence when there is the Clear Light there is Emptiness, and from
the realm of Emptiness the Clear Light appears of itself. The
Clear Light and Emptiness thus occurring are determined to be
innately one: thus they are in "Innate Union." And thus arising
from the realm wherein one experiences only the absence of mental
objects, whatever "appears" occurs as the play of the non-duality
of this world and nirvana. Since one experiences this, one understands
the entire quality of the mind which is the Innate Union
of Light and Emptiness, called "the nature of the genuine mind."
Isolating the elements from the chart above, the gradual unfolding
of the light of Emptiness—the growing apprehension of the Clear
Light—may be diagramed alternatively, as shown here.
Metaphor
Clear Light
Apperance as Clear Light
Emptiness
Becoming Clear Light
Great Emptiness
Culmination as Clear Light
Complete Emptiness
Increase as Clear Light
More Emptiness
This sequence of development is, as Tsongk'apa has pointed out,
a "reversal of evolution," and thus it may work toward the creation
of the world of appearances as well as toward its dissolution. The
Abridged Instructions, an anthology of basic Kajii teachings, contains
a section on the Clear Light written by Ngawang zangpo,
wherein we find a specifically Tantric scheme of the evolution and
devolution of dualistic awareness which parallels the account of the
construction of nonreality examined above: 200
Someone who has neither been instructed nor has the mindfulness
to recognize things as they really are insists upon taking
things to be true: thus the first of four stages is that an event
appears as a real thing.