Fourteen verses written
by Lama Tsong Khapa
I BOW TO ALL THE
HIGH AND HOLY LAMAS.
1. As far as I am able, I shall
explain
the essence of all high teachings
of the Victors,
the path that all their holy
sons commend,
the entry point for the fortunate
seeking freedom.
2. Listen with a pure mind,
fortunate ones who have no
craving
for the pleasures of life,
and who to make leisure and fortune meaningful,
strive to turn their minds
to the path which pleases the Victors.
3. There is no way to end,
without the pure renunciation,
this striving for pleasant
results in the ocean of life.
It is because of their hankering
life as well
that beings are fettered,
so seek renunciation first.
4. Leisure and fortune are hard
to find; life is not long;
think it constantly, stop
desire for this life.
Think over and over how deeds
and their fruits never fail,
and the cycle's suffering;
stop desire for the future.
5. When you have meditated thus,
and feel not even a moment's
desire
for the good things of cyclic
life,
and when you begin to think
both night and day
of achieving freedom,
you have found renunciation.
6. Renunciation, though, can never
bring
the total bliss of matchless
Buddhahood,
unless it is bound by the
highest wish;
and so, the wise seek
the high wish for enlightenment.
7. They are swept along on four
fierce river currents;
chained up tight in past deeds,
hard to undo;
stuffed in a steel cage of
grasping "self";
smothered in the pitch-black
ignorance.
8. In a limitless round, they are
born,
and in their births, are tortured
by three sufferings without a break;
think how your mothers feel;
think of what is happening
to them;
try to develop this highest
wish.
9. You may master renunciation and
the wish,
but unless you have the wisdom
perceiving reality,
you cannot cut the root of
cyclic life.
Make efforts in ways, then,
to perceive interdependence.
10. A person has entered the path
that pleases the Buddhas
when,
for all objects, in the cycle or beyond,
he sees that cause and effect
can never fail,
and when, for him, they lose
all solid appearance.
11. You have yet to realize the
Thought of the Able
as long as two ideas seem
disparate to you:
the appearance of things --
infallible interdependence
and emptiness -- beyond taking
any position.
12. At some point they no longer
alternate
[but] come together; just
seeing that
interdependence never fails
brings realization that destroys
how you hold to objects,
and then your analysis with
view is complete.
13. In addition, the appearance
prevents the existence extreme,
and emptiness [prevents] that
of non-existence;
and if you see how emptiness
shows in cause and effect,
you will never be stolen off
by extreme views.
14. When you have grasped as well
as I
the essential points of each
of the three principal paths explained,
then go into isolation, my
son,*
make mighty efforts,
and quickly win your ultimate
wish.
* The word "son"
here refers to those who have developed bodhichitta in their hearts, rather
than indicating gender.
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