Brand New Sun

Someday, a brand new sun will be born in your sky. This only lasts for an instant, but if you let the light shine through, there might even be a rainbow.

"All that is has me -- universal creativity, pure and total presence -- as its root. How things appear is my being. How things arise is my manifestation. Sounds and words heard are my messages, expressed in sounds and words. All the capacities, forms, and pristine awareness's of the Buddhas; the bodies of sentient beings, their habituations, and so forth; all environments and their inhabitants, life forms, and experiences -- are the primordial state of pure and total presence."

Longchenpa wrote that, and of course it was beautifully written, and of course it is a good thing to remember. But, even this -- the imputation of its verity, the imputation of its beauty, the imputation of its meaning -- will evaporate when the new sun is born. 

The thing is not to go looking. Maybe the thing is to just wait out the intermission, without developing any opinions: no thumbs up, no thumbs down. 

When suns explode open at birth, there may be thunderbolts thrown to the ground. Due to imprints, you may encounter long-deceased relations -- your father, your mother -- but, when such moments come -- as they inevitably will -- there is no longer any reason to make sense of such things.

"Without understanding me -- the creativity of the universe -- but investigating the phenomena that I manifest, you perceive everything dualistically due to your attachment and longing. Impermanent, apparitional things will fade away. They are aimless, like a blind man. Accustom yourself to this non-dual reality where the duality of mind, and that which appears before mind, is like a dream."

So, if you see thunderbolts being hurled from the center of an exploding orb of light, or if you are miraculously reunited with absent loved ones, or if your motion picture is interrupted by another motion picture -- equally enchanting, equally false -- just forget them: or, more to the point, let them dissolve naturally, as  naturally they shall, in the preterite present expressions of your being.

What of this past you believe predicates this present you believe you perceive? Does it have any substance at all? Is this sun rising, or setting? This time you believe you have occupied, now occupy, and will occupy --- where is it? What is it?

"All that is experienced and your own mind is the unique primary reality. They cannot be conceptualized according to the cause and effect systems of thought. Investigate your mind's real nature, so that your pure and total presence will actually shine forth."

Someday, a brand new sun will be born in your sky. Whether you say, "Now, I have come to the moment of death," or say instead that you have come to another moment of life -- these are just adornments along a heart-stream of effortlessly compassionate intention, and this "mind" upon which you lavish so much effort really has no place to stand.

"The state of pure and total presence is the clear light, the pure fact of awareness, non-conceptual ever-fresh awareness; whereas mind is the motivating factor of samsara: pervasive conceptualization."

Sailing in the Jewel Ship, Longchenpa spoke to the sky.

Such riches as have been given to us beggar the imagination.  Such luxury, and splendor, accompanies us as to stir the envy of kings. We are everywhere bathed in divine light, which dissolves into us, as we dissolve into essence, and reside continuously in the space beyond source and ambience, where there is no longer any striving.

As children, we lay in summer fields and gazed at ever-changing clouds. We believed the clouds assumed the shapes of fantasy, and said to each other, "Look! There is a dragon!" or, "See here! A lion!" In the easy grace of childhood, we did not keep the dragons and lions for very long. We allowed the winds to dissipate the clouds, as they might, leaving only the sky.

Like Longchenpa, indivisibly, we spoke to the sky: the teacher of the teacher,  in the dream of a brand new sun being born.