I will serve all sentient beings, infinite in number as are the limits of the sky.’
Keeping thyself unseparated from this resolution, thou shouldst try to remember whatever devotional practices thou wert accustomed to perform during thy lifetime.[1]
In saying this, the reader shall put his lips close to the ear, and shall repeat it distinctly, clearly impressing it upon the dying person so as to prevent his mind from wandering even for a moment.
After the expiration hath completely ceased, press the nerve of sleep firmly; and, a lāma, or a person higher or more learned than thyself, impress in these words, thus:
Reverend Sir, now that thou art experiencing the Fundamental Clear Light, try to abide in that state which now thou art experiencing.
And also in the case of any other person the reader shall set him face-to-face thus:
O nobly-born (so-and-so), listen. Now thou art experiencing the Radiance of the Clear Light of Pure Reality. Recognize it. O nobly-born, thy present intellect,[2] in real nature void, not formed into anything as regards characteristics or colour, naturally void, is the very Reality, the All-Good.[3]
Thine own intellect, which is now voidness, yet not to be
- ↑ Cf. the following, from The Book of the Craft of Dying, chap. V, in Bodleian MS. 423 (circa fifteenth century), Comper’s ed. (p. 35) : ‘Also, if he that shall die have long time and space to be-think himself, and be not taken with hasty death, then may be read afore him, of them that be about him, devout histories and devout prayers, in the which he most delighted in when he was in heal [i.e. health].’
- ↑ Text: Shes-rig (pron. She-rig) is the intellect, the knowing or cognizing faculty.
- ↑ Text: Chös-nyid Kün-tu-bzang-po (pron. Chö-nyid Küntu-zang-po), Skt. Dharma-Dhātu Samanta-Bhadra, the embodiment of the Dharma-Kāya, the first state of Buddhahood. Our Block-Print text, in error here, gives for the All-Good (Kuntu-Zang-po, meaning ‘All-Good Father’) Kuntu-Zang-mo, which means ‘All-Good Mother’. According to the Great Perfectionist School, the Father is that which appears, or phenomena, the Mother is that which is conscious of the phenomena, Again, Bliss is the Father, and the Voidness perceiving it, the Mother; the Radiance is the Father, and the Voidness perceiving it, the Mother; and, as in our text here, the intellect is the Father, the Voidness the Mother. The repetition of ‘void’ is to emphasize the importance of knowing the intellect to be in reality void (or of the nature of voidness), i.e. of the unborn, uncreated, unshaped Primordial.
children, parents, and vice versa; for shiṣhyas, gurus, and vice versa; for common people, kings or rulers; and for kings, ministers of state.
