Tsele Natsook Rangdrol's FINAL HEART ADVICE JUST BEFORE DEATH

BUDDHA VAIROCANA

By  TSELE NATSOK RANGDROL
Born 1608 Tibet

HIS FINAL HEART ADVICE JUST BEFORE DEATH

THE ORAL INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN BY THE GREAT VIDYADHARA OF IMMORTALITY WHEN HIS PHYSICAL BODY WAS ABOUT TO DEPART
INTO DHARMADHATU

____________________________________________________

The ultimate and essential heart advice is precisely this !

And my last words at Death are also none other than this ! _________________________________________________________

At all times and in all situations, I bow to and take Refuge in the sublime qualified Master endowed with boundless Compassion who is like a wish-fulfilling Jewel !

To attain the state of unexcelled Enlightenment, upon entering the gate of the precious BuddhaDharma, you must give up concerns for this life !

Your parents , family, friends and other people lead your mind towards the fleeting goals of this life’s activities, and offering all kinds of seemingly affectionate advice. 

Fooling yourself with all this will only result in various hindrances for Dharma practice; so it is essential not to listen to their words !

Besides a qualified Master you won’t find anyone who can give genuine spiritual advice. If you want to truly practice Dharma you must quickly make preparations for Death. 

Besides that, someone who entertains many temporary and ultimate plans will not be able to be a Dharma practitioner.

People nowadays may outwardly pretend to try and please everyone but that only proves they are possessed inwardly by Mara.

Place your trust in Dharma and your Master ! 

Take mountain retreats and un-peopled valleys as your dwelling place ! 

Give up clinging to the short lived pleasures of food, clothes and the like ! 

Cut your ties to close family members ! 

Cast away all hypocritical flattery and manipulation ! 

Focus one-pointedly on whatever your Master says ! 

By doing so your Dharma practice will be pure.

In general, people nowadays fall under Mara’s reign. In particular, fickle and indolent women don’t follow the advice of their teachers and instead take guidance from their family. 

By doing so they postpone doing what they definitely should be doing now: studying and training in Dharma practice. 

They seem to be primarily caught up in pointless worldly activities, 

kowtowing to family and friends, and the like. 

Therefore take hold of the “rope to your nose” and don’t listen to others !

Sincerely take to heart the fact that the time of Death lies uncertain. 

Then knowing that there is not time to waste, diligently apply yourself 

to spiritual practice !

Your parent’s kindness can only be repaid through Dharma practice, there is no benefit in repaying them in with mundane attainments. 

Your teacher’s kindness can only be repaid by practicing meditation, 

nothing else will do.

You can only benefit sentient beings through the Bodhichitta resolve and by making aspirations; comparatively any other immediate action is of little benefit. 

As for your vows and samayas, unless you take your own conscience as witness, you will only become a hypocrite even though you may maintain 

a superficially virtuous morality and exterior.

Remain in secluded valleys and mountain retreats, because any 

spiritual practice done among the masses will only get you caught 

up in one situation after another. 

If you fail to take control of your own mind, even though you may 

make many promises and take many vows, they will result in 

hardly any benefit at all.

Unless you realize the key point of Natural Awareness 

~~~ That Knowing One Thing Liberates All ~~~ 

you won’t find any certainty in pursuing endless seemingly 

“important” information.

To summarize all vital points: with the thought “I will surely die !” 

hasten your plans to practice the Dharma ! 

Since a Master is your only hope, supplicate him/her from your Heart ! 

Since all pleasure and pain, whatever befalls you, is a repayment 

from the past, don’t entertain many plans ! 

Treat good, evil and impartial people as being above you and always 

take the lowest seat !

Train in impartial pure perception and do not belittle others ! 

Acknowledge your own faults and don’t meditate on others’ shortcomings ! 

Since the vital point of all the Teachings lies in your own mind, 

always scrutinize its nature !

Cast away the fixation of rigidly meditating upon a reference point 

and instead release your awareness into carefree openness !

Decide that whatever you experience is the playful expression 

of Awareness; don’t try to improve good or correct evil !

All experience is your own Mind and this Mind, 

free from arising and ceasing, is the identity of the Trikaya Guru.

This Guru is indivisible from your Natural Awareness. 

Its cognizant Radiance encompasses all that appears and exists.

Since all of appearance and existence is the magical display of this 

single expanse of Awareness, the “ultimate view” is to see your
Mind in utterly naked naturalness.

“Meditation training” is to remain in this continuously. 

“Ensuing  cognition” is when a thought is projected.

“Post-meditation” (Ensuing attainment) is to recognize that projection. 

“Conduct” is to mingle walking, sitting and all other activities with 

the state of awareness.

The indivisibility of meditation and post-meditation is to be 

continuously free from even a second of distraction or confusion, 

uninterrupted by gaps of stillness or thought occurrence. 

When perfected it is the indivisibility of appearance and Mind, 

of self and others, of pleasure and pain, enmity and friendship, 

and of love and hate. In short;

“Fruition” is to have perpetually exhausted all kinds of duality fixating concepts.

When this has happened, samsara and nirvana are purified into the 

space of Dharmadhatu and you have realized the 

spontaneously present three Kayas. 

This is called “attaining Buddha-hood”, 

the “exhaustion of phenomena and concepts” or 

“becoming a Siddha”. 

This is the time of gaining mastery over Birth and Death 

and the physical elements, and when effortless Compassion and 

activity spontaneously occur throughout the entire universe.

In brief, the basic cause of everything is nothing but your 

Present Natural Awareness. 

Therefore, the Sublime Key Point is too continuously maintain 

your Natural Awareness throughout both day and night
without any separation.

As for all the thoughts that do occur as the expression of this
Natural Awareness, be they gross or subtle,
don’t analyze them and don’t follow them either. 

Don’t try to bring them back into your meditation or obstruct them. 

If you succeed in simply recognizing the sudden occurrence of a thought, 

then let it be in just that.

When it happens that you do get involved in thoughts that recollect the 

past or entertain the future, then let be directly in Awareness. 

If a thought pattern continues, there is no need for a separate antidote 

since whatever takes place is liberated by itself. 

What occurs spontaneously is the Radiance of your own Mind. 

To See it with Vivid Clarity is the Essential Instruction ! 

It is your mind’s natural disposition to spontaneously reflect. 

Consequently, spend your life within this state of carefree and pervasive openness, of undistracted nonmeditation, of knowing 

~~~  One Thing That Liberates All ~~~ 

...in which all that appears and exists is
Dharmakaya, Samsara and Nirvana are indivisible,
and arising and liberation are simultaneous. 

If you spend your entire life in spiritual activities within this kind of state,
in which the thinker and the object of thought are an undivided Unity,
there is not a single doubt that you will capture the
“Stronghold of Non-regression” in this very life !

Wherever the person stays who has abandoned all activities, that very place is the Buddhafield.
 
If you can supplicate without duplicity, all that appears and
exists is then the Guru’s Mandala.

As soon as you Cut The Root of the Demon Ego-Clinging,
you are permanently free from obstacle, misfortunes and Mara.

The moment you understand that the Guru is indivisible from you own Mind, the falsehood of seeming meeting and separation spontaneously collapses.

Once you resolve that Samsara and Nirvana are the display of Awareness,
who is there to experience the pain of any lower realm ?

When realizing that your
Natural Awareness is the Primordially Free Dharmakaya,
what is the point of entertaining hopes and fears about
the paths and bhumis ?

In the meeting of the already acquainted Mother and Child Luminosities, what is the use of fearing the collapse of the
illusory body?

When dying, die within the primordially pure space of Luminosity !

While alive, there is nothing more important than training in meditation with unflagging constancy !

You may compare all the Sutras, Tantras and oral instructions,
but the essence of Realization is nothing other than this !

The ultimate and essential heart advice is precisely this !

And my last words at Death are also none other than this !

All worthy ones who are devoted to me, don’t pay lip-service to this, but assimilate its meaning !

The experience of Original Wakefulness will then dawn from within your hearts, and you will arrive at Buddhahood in a single instant !

By whatever merit which might arise from this advice, may all my old mothers, sentient beings filling all of space,
be Liberated !

Mangalam.

Translated by Erik Pema Kunsang

© 1994  Rangjung Yeshe Institute,

Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling Monastery

Boudhanath, Nepal P.O. Box 1200, Kathmandi, Nepal