THE COSMIC MIRROR
In TANTRIC POETRY by Douglas J. Penick
Among Gesar’s daydreams, visions and songs on his journey home, this part begins The Mirror of Nowness: the legacy of the rulers of Shambhala.
Gesar, King of Ling, Destroyer of Demons, makes his way home at the head of his army. They wind their way along rocky riverbeds and rise onto steep mountain trails. When they reach the summit of the first mountain pass, they see before them rank upon rank of jagged snow mountains amid billowing white cloud banks ranged before them. They pause, awe-struck as if they are on the border of a different world. Gesar laughs and sings to them, beginning with some verses from the Avatamsaka Sutra:
The Flower Bank Ocean of worlds
Expands further than the universe.
Pure, it is pure in every sense;
At peace, peace, it fills all of space.
In this ocean of worlds
Are more world systems than any mind conceives.
Each is arrayed in different shapes, colors, senses.
Each is utterly independent.
They cannot be mistaken, one for the other.
Like networks of cities,
They circle each other like whirlpools,
Like vast blooming lotus flowers.
Gesar, King of Ling, Destroyer of Demons, makes his way home at the head of his army. They wind their way along rocky riverbeds and rise onto steep mountain trails. When they reach the summit of the first mountain pass, they see before them rank upon rank of jagged snow mountains amid billowing white cloud banks ranged before them. They pause, awe-struck as if they are on the border of a different world. Gesar laughs and sings to them, beginning with some verses from the Avatamsaka Sutra:
The Flower Bank Ocean of worlds
Expands further than the universe.
Pure, it is pure in every sense;
At peace, peace, it fills all of space.
In this ocean of worlds
Are more world systems than any mind conceives.
Each is arrayed in different shapes, colors, senses.
Each is utterly independent.
They cannot be mistaken, one for the other.
Like networks of cities,
They circle each other like whirlpools,
Like vast blooming lotus flowers.
THE COSMIC MIRROR
In the all-pervasive pure immensity of primordial space,
The limitless, the timeless;
Space before stillness, time before occurrence,
The signless, the directionless, the gateless;
In this realm which neither appears nor disappears;
Space without other, ground without path, the primordial mandala
Is pure presence, is pure reality itself.
Now,
Without beginning,
Now,
Without end,
The cosmic mirror
Is the spontaneous expanse of infinite space.
The first moment without the second,
The cosmic mirror is primordial nowness.
Now,
Radiating within the space beyond space and the time beyond time,
Everywhere and simultaneously.
Now,
Light before illumination and shadow;
Luminosity inseparable from bliss,
The radiance of all, bliss of all,
The self-luminous blazes as gates of light.
Now,
Without logic or consequence,
Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch
Shine
Free from the limits of perceiver, perception or consciousness.
This is the all-encompassing radiance
Of the cosmic mirror.
Now,
As a bolt of lightning, as a sharp cry
All the wisdom of the cosmic mirror
Condenses.
A sudden dot,
Vibrant, alive, awake,
Pulses in the infinite expanse of luminous space.
Now is the all-pervasive life
Of vision, tenderness and courage.
The Kingdom of Shambhala
Rises beyond time
Complete, brilliant and all-pervasive
In every instant.
This was extracted from The Brilliance of Naked Mind: Secret Visions of Gesar, King of Ling with the kind permission of the author Douglas J. Penick.
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