Emaho!

Victorious Hevajra is

One’s own mind—primordially pure.

Neither empty nor non-empty—

It abides in a state free from elaboration.

That self-arising primordial wisdom, without elaboration,

I’d not recognised it before—while meditating on the path;

I’ve come to understand this was delusion meditating on delusion. 

Now being free from the meditating intellect,

When I wish to meditate, meditation is obscured by meditation itself.

But with the great realisation of nonmeditation, everything dawns as meditation—

While ordinary beings are fettered by wisdom itself—

For the yogi, the five poisons arise as ornaments.

The ultimate nature of phenomena, beyond arising and cessation,

The learned don’t understand it, so I asked the simple-minded—they know not either!

I questioned the corpses in the charnel grounds;

What they explain is the ultimate nature of phenomena.

These are a madman’s meditation experiences in the snowy mountains of Labchi.

Evaṃ, written down in words—how wonderful!

Evaṃ

COLOPHON

None

NOTES

[1] “A Madman’s Meditation Experiences: A Song from Labchi” is a title supplied by the translators since this “song,” or doha, is untitled in the Collected Songs of Tsangnyön Heruka, sung at the sacred Kagyu hermitage of Labchi.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tsangnyön Heruka (gtsang smyon he ru ka rus paʼi rgyan can). rje btsun gtsang smyon he ru kas la phyi nas blangs pa’i nyams mgur. In gtsang smyon he ru kaʼi mgur ʼbum, 1 vol., 1, compiled by Godtsangpa Natsok Rangdröl (rgod tshang pa sna tshogs rang grol). BDRC MW4CZ1248.