Chapter 1: What teachings does Longchenpa provide on the nature of reality?
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The sixth Vajra point, Echo. Now that it has been established that phenomena are not nothing, for they nevertheless appear. We now go on to show that they are not permanent. All phenomena resemble echoes. They have no intrinsic nature, even in the very moment that they are perceived. They have no enduring permanence and are ineffable.
Because they are not truly existent entities, they are like the resounding of an echo. Once again, this topic will be explained in three sections, according to ground, path and result. Let us first establish the ground. When people speak or shout, in front of a rocky outcrop. The echo of their cry resounds, but the sound resonates without being located anywhere, either outside or within.
In just the same way, co-emergent ignorance concomitant with the empty and luminous character of the primordial ground, which itself lacks intrinsic being, acts as a cause, with the result that the ground's own radiance manifests as different hallucinatory appearances
Since they appear, even though they have no existence, whether in awareness or anywhere else, it is in the manner of an echo that samsara arises. In truth, they are but the clear appearance of something non-existent, and nothing else. When people stand before a cliff, their songs or speech, their laughter, lamentation are circumstances for the sounding of an echo.
Yet from their voice the sound does not reverberate. Understand that all things are like this. The resounding of an echo cannot be located anywhere, either in the people or the cliff or somewhere in between them. And yet it is perceived existing as it were thanks to certain conditions. In the same way, if all outer phenomena as well as the thoughts within the mind are examined,
the gross outer objects analysed into their component parts, and the subtle mental phenomena examined for their shape, colour and so on. They are all found to be without the slightest degree of real existence. They are like space, beyond the reach of conception and expression. If reasoning investigates appearing things, not one of them is found.
Their ultimate condition is precisely this non-finding. Their final and primordial nature This empty condition of things transcends the ordinary mind. Those who propound the objective reality of phenomena maintain that they have two aspects. They say that phenomena exist on the relative level but not on the ultimate level.
This, however, is untenable, for such phenomena have no existence, even in the very moment that they are being experienced. It is only the mind that conceives of phenomena as having these two aspects. for it is obvious that the latter are not part and parcel of phenomena themselves.
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Chapter 2: How does Longchenpa explain the concept of phenomena as echoes?
as Master Nagarjuna has said, referring to the experience of the Aryas. Since things are as they appear to them, analysis does not apply.
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Samsara is like an echo. It is just a kind of reverberation occurring through the play of dependent arising. When the primordial nature of the mind, a sky-like expanse in which the jewel-like qualities of enlightenment are spontaneously present.
Is conditioned by co-emergent and conceptual ignorance the habitual tendency to the mistaken duality of apprehended object and apprehending subject takes form and beings wander in samsara which is just like an echo Owing to different habitual tendencies, there arise the appearances of the six classes of beings who stray from one existential state to another.
Owing to the fact that the mind is defiled and thanks to positive actions leading to happiness, one rises to the higher realms Because of negative actions, one falls into the lower realms. They are afflicted who, owing to their positive and negative actions, pass through the different states of existence, one after the other.
The various worlds arise from actions and actions come from various intentions. When it is realized that phenomena are groundless and rootless, they are viewed as a vast, fleeting, ungraspable display. impossible to qualify as either wide or narrow, high or low. Within the purview of ultimate reality, everything is perceived as being even or equal and one is comfortable and at ease.
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When things appear and when one has neither hope nor fear in their regard, they are all similar to the resounding of an echo Since everything subsides without being identified as this or that, all is leveled, being even, primordially pure and without true existence. It is then that all appearances and all experiences seem like one vast spectacle.
When the root of the mind is cut, all clinging to an outer object naturally subsides. Then once and for all, everything that appears is for the yogi, just a dramatic spectacle. since there is nothing to grasp and nothing to identify in all these appearances there is no defining them since they are without any essential core they are loose Since they are unreal appearances, they are intangible.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the ground in Longchenpa's teachings?
May all beings, leaving none aside, embark upon the mighty ship of concentration and voyage on the path to liberation. In the vast sky of their perfect aspiration, may intelligence's lightning flash. And from the massing clouds, may the refreshing waters of the doctrine's peaceful reign bring increase to the harvest of disciples blessed by fortune.
May compassion's tree with boughs of benefit and bliss. May concentration's flowers and wisdom's perfect fruit. May fragrance and cool shade. Four ways whereby disciples are attracted. delight the flocks of birds, the minds of beings. This concludes a chapter that is like an echo, a commentary on the sixth Vajra point of finding rest in illusion, a teaching of the great perfection.
Thank you.