The first volume in an historic and noteworthy 6-volume seriescontaining many ofthe first English translations of the classic mahamudra literature compiled by the Seventh Karmapa. Sounds of Innate Freedom: The Indian Texts of Mahamudra is an historic six-volume series containing many of the first English translations of classic Mahamudra literature. The texts and songs in these volumes constitute the large compendium called The Indian Texts of the Mahamudra of Definitive Meaning, compiled by the Seventh Karmapa, Chötra Gyatso (1456–1539). Mahamudra refers to perfect buddhahood in a single instant, the omnipresent essence of mind, nondual and free of obscuration. This collection offers a brilliant window into the richness of the vast ocean of Indian Mahamudra texts, many cherished in all Tibetan lineages, particularly in the Kagyü tradition, giving us a clear view of the sources of one of the world's great contemplative traditions. This first volume in publication contains the majority of songs of realization, consisting of dohas (couplets), vajragitis (vajra songs), and caryagitis (conduct songs), all lucidly expressing the inexpressible. These songs offer readers a feast of profound and powerful pith instructions uttered by numerous male and female mahasiddhas, yogis, and dakinis, often in the context of ritual ganacakras and initially kept in their secret treasury. Displaying a vast range of themes, styles, and metaphors, they all point to the single true nature of the mind—mahamudra—in inspiring ways and from different angles, using a dazzling array of skillful means to penetrate the sole vital point of buddhahood being found nowhere but within our own mind. The beautifully translated texts brilliantly capture the wordplay, mystical wonder, bliss, and ecstatic sense of freedom expressed by awakened Mahamudra masters of India. It includes works by Saraha, Mitrayogi, Virupa, Tilopa, Naropa, Maitripa, Nagarjuna, the female mahasiddhas princess Laksmimkara and Dombiyogini, and otherwise unknown awakened figures of this rich tradition. Reading and singing these songs that convey the inconceivable and contemplating their meaning in meditation will open doors to spiritual experience for us today just as it has for countless practitioners in the past.
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Yes, you can access Sounds of Innate Freedom by Karl Brunnhölzl in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Eastern Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
1The most widely accepted hermeneutical etymology of “ḍākinī” says that it derives from the root ḍī or ḍai (“to fly”), as explained in Kaṅha’s Yogaratnamālā (a commentary on the Hevajratantra), Jayabhadra’s Cakrasaṃvarapañjikā, and others. Earlier Indian and Buddhist literature represents ḍākinīs (mkha’ ’gro ma) as malevolent devourers of humans. This aspect still survives as the class of ḍākinīs known as “flesh eaters.” In popular North Indian belief to this day, as one of the “shadows” of the traditional Hinduist view of women, ḍākinīs are understood close to the Western notion of human and nonhuman witches. In tantric Buddhism, there is a division into “mundane ḍākinīs” (Skt. lokaḍākinī), usually representing a negative force inimical to Buddhism that needs to be subdued and converted, and supramundane “wisdom ḍākinīs” (Skt. jñānaḍākinī), who embody the wisdom as well as the inner impetus that leads to buddhahood. They may appear in human or nonhuman forms, offering guidance to tantric practitioners and serving as the guardians of secret teachings.
2Excerpted from Do ha skor gsum gyi Ti ka ’bring po sems kyi rnam thar ston pa’i me long by Karma Trinleypa (1456–1539); translation by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. The text preceding the quotation, as well as the paragraph that immediately follows it, also closely follows Karma Trinleypa’s text.
3Tib. Nges don phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung. In the blockprints of Palpung Monastery (GZ1), this collection consists of three large volumes, while the modern Tibetan book edition (GZ3) has six volumes.
4Tib. Chos grags rgya mtsho (1456–1539).
5The Tengyur consists of the canonical texts of Tibetan Buddhism by Indian (and some Tibetan) authors other than the Buddha.
6As Roger Jackson (2009, 3–4 and 12–13) says, the Anāvilatantra was probably included in GZ and other mahāmudrā collections as the only tantra because it was included in the old list of “the ten dharmas of mahāmudrā” (Tib. phyag rgya chen po’i chos bcu) that is mentioned in BA (865) as going back to Maitrīpa and as having been transmitted by his student Vajrapāṇi.
7Tib. Karma bkra shis chos ’phel blo gros rgya mtsho’i sgra dbyangs (born nineteenth century). This catalogue also includes a description of the general background of the collection and the diverse lineages through which its texts were transmitted.
8Tib. ’Jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas (1813–99).
9Tib. Grub pa sde bdun (different sources have varying lists of seven or eight “siddhi texts”).
10Thematically, and as indicated by their names, these two texts as well as Kerali’s Tattvasiddhi at the beginning of volume 2 are also considered as belonging to the corpus of “siddhi texts.”
11Tib. Snying po skor drug; again, different sources have varying lists of the texts in this cycle.
12Except for Saraha’s Dohakoṣa and Sahajavajra’s Sthitisamāsa (a doxography), the remaining texts of this cycle discuss the perfection process. I translate utpattikrama (Tib. bskyed rim) and utpannakrama (or niṣpannakrama; Tib. rdzogs rim) as “creation process” and “perfection process,” respectively, rather than more familiar but somewhat misleading terms such as “creation stage” (or “generation stage”) and “completion stage” (the term *saṃpannakrama, which is still very common in contemporary secondary literature, is not attested in any known Indian text and appears to be nothing but a wrong back-translation of Tib. rdzogs rim). As for the reasons, Skt. utpatti means “arising” and “production,” while utpanna means “arisen,” “produced,” and “ready” (niṣpanna means “arisen,” “brought about,” “completed,” and “ready”). Krama means “an uninterrupted or regular progress, order, series, or succession,” but also “method.” Merriam-Webster defines “process” as “a series of actions or operations conducing to an end,” which is exactly what utpattikrama and utpannakrama are: increasingly refined progressive sequences (and not just one stage) of visualization, recitation, and meditation that have clearly defined goals. The process of the utpannakrama is based on the readily available fruition of having sufficiently cultivated the utpattikrama (in that sense, more literally, the utpannakrama means further meditative training based on “what has been produced” before during the utpattikrama).
13Both the names and the numbers (ranging from twenty-four to twenty-six) of the texts in “The Cycle of Twenty-Five Dharmas of Mental Nonengagement” (Tib. Yid la mi byed pa’i chos skor nyi shu rtsa lnga) vary in different sources. The classification of Indian Mahāmudrā texts into “The Seven Siddhi Texts,” “The Sixfold Pith Cycle,” and “The Cycle of Twenty-Five Dharmas of Mental Nonengagement” existed at least since the time of Butön Rinchen Drub (Tib. Bu ston rin chen grub; 1290–1364). For more details, see Jackson 2008 and Mathes 2011.
14In addition, Saraha’s “Queen Dohā” and another commentary on his “People Dohā” by Advaya Avadhūtīpa are found in appendices.
15Alias Ajitamitragupta and Mitrayogī (twelfth century); though he is hardly known in the later Tibetan tradition, he also taught extensively in Tibet and was undoubtedly one of the most realized masters to ever visit there.
16Maitrīpa’s main works (many under his aliases Advayavajra and Avadhūta/Avadhūtipa) included here add up to about thirty-five (plus eight by his direct students), while more than twenty are attributed to Saraha. In addition, further songs attributed to these two masters are found in some of the anthologies of dohās and vajra songs in volumes 4 and 5.
17For more details, see Robinson 1979 and Dowman 1985.
18These people are said to have originated from the union of a Brahman (the highest of the four castes) woman and a Śūdra (the lowest caste) man.
19I am fully aware that other contemporary authors choose a different approach, providing detailed explanations of virtually every practice that the Indo-...
Table of contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Publisher’s Acknowledgment
Contents
Foreword by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
(91) A Commentary on “Four and a Half Stanzas”
(92) A Pith Instruction on the Four Mudrās
(93)–(94) Two Vajra Songs by Nāropa
(95)–(96) Two Vajra Songs by Kṛṣṇa
(97) A Song on the Connate
(98) A Song on Abandoning Thoughts
(99) A Dohā Treasure Song on Karmacaṇḍālikā
(100) A Dohā Treasure Song on the Ornament of Spring
(101) An Instruction on the Connate
(102) The Stages of Unsurpassable Universal Purity
(103) Familiarizing with the True Reality of View and Conduct Being Unborn
(104) The Stages of Familiarizing with the Nāḍī of Nonduality
(105) The Subtle Yoga
(106) A Dohā Treasure Song on the View of the Nature of True Reality
(107) A Dohā Song on View, Meditation, Conduct, and Fruition
(108) A Song on True Reality That Is a Dohā Treasure
(109) A Dohā Treasure Song on Conduct
(110) The View in a Dohā Treasure Song of Connate Ecstasy
(111) A Song on the View of the Sugatas
(112) A Dohā Song on the True Reality of the Vāyus
(113) A Song on the Four Vajras
(114) A Song by Guru Maitrīpa
(115)–(116) Two Songs by Saraha
(117) A Vajra Song by Virūkara
(118) A Song by Kāṇhapa
(119)–(121) Songs of Guru Dhiṣṭijñāna
(122) A Song by Karṇari
(123) A Song by Mātṛceṭa
(124)–(125) Two Songs of Bada
(126) A Song by Ācārya Vīravairocana
(127) A Song by Paṇḍita Nāropa
(128) A Song by Lūhipa
(129) A Song by Ḍombipa
(130) A Song by Virūpa
(131) A Song by Lavapa
(132) A Song by Mahāsukhatā
(133) A Song by the Yogī Prasara
(134) A Song by Nāgārjuna
(135)–(136) Two Dharma Songs by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna
(137) The View in a Conduct Song Dohā
(138) The View of Emptiness
(139) The View of Being Free of the Duality of Happiness and Suffering
(140) The View of Nonconnection
(141) The View of Being Unbound and Letting Go
(142) The View of Emptiness and Compassion
(143) The View of the Jewel of Mind
(144) The View of True Reality in Eight Stanzas
(145) The View of Overcoming Mind’s Thoughts
(146) The View of Driving Away Misery
(147) The View of Mere Mind
(148) The View of the Skull of Compassionate Conduct
(149) The View of Being Unbound
(150) The View of Suchness
(151) A Conduct Song
(152) A Commentary on “A Conduct Song”
(153) A Song on Beholding the Dharmadhātu
(154) A Vajra Song on the Vajra Seat
(155) A Commentary on “A Vajra Song on the Vajra Seat”
(156) A Dhyāna Song
(157) A Meditation on the Sixteen Bindus
(158) A Pith Instruction on Binding Inner and Outer Bodhicitta
(159) A Pith Instruction on Familiarizing with the True Reality of the Vāyus
(160) Cultivating the Four Yogas
(161) Familiarizing with the True Reality of the Vāyus
(162) The Perfection Process of the Vajraḍākinī
(163) A Synopsis of Ascertaining Prajñā and Means
(164) A Pith Instruction Called “Nonestablishment of a Nature”
(165) The Jewel Garland
(166) The Blessing of Cultivating Compassion
(167) Ascertaining the Basic Nature of the Mahāyāna
(168) Offering a Piece of Advice for the Mind
(169) A Mahāmudrā Practice of Familiarizing with the Guru of Ground, Path, and Fruition
(170) Yoginī Conduct by Way of Nāḍī and Bindu
(171) A Pith Instruction in Two Syllables
(172) A Pith Instruction on Cultivating the Yoga That Accords with Cultivating the Bliss of True Reality
(173) The Means to Calm Mind and Thinking
(174) The Path of the Perfection Process of All Deities
(175) Cultivating the Inconceivable
(176) A Pith Instruction on the View of Self-Aware Wisdom
(177) The Heart of the Realizations of the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas
(178) Dohās of the Secret of Mind
(179) Vajra Songs by Forty Siddhas, Called “A Garland of Gold”
(180) The Expressions of Realization of Thirty-Five Wisdom Ḍākinīs
(181) The All-Encompassing Song of the Ḍākinīs
(182) The Vajra Songs of All Siddhas, Called “The Light of the True Reality of All Yogīs”
(183) A Golden Garland of Mahāmudrā
(184) A Letter to Prajñā
(185) Dispelling the Obstacles of the Thoughts of Yogīs
(186) The Inconceivable and Supremely Secret Hidden Path of the Five Poisons
(187) The Reality of the Characteristics of Yoga
(188) A Timely Discourse on Making Effort in Prajñā
(189) A Chapter on Samādhi Equipment
(190) The Supramundane Ritual of the Seven Branches
(191) The Ship of the Precious Teachings of the Sugata
(192) A Treatise on the Glorious Liberation from Bondage
(193) A Pith Instruction on Pure View and Conduct
(194) The Path and Fruition of Purifying the Jewel of the Mind
(195) A Pith Instruction on the Liberation of Bondage
(196) Certainty about the Genuine Path to Accomplishment
(197) A Pith Instruction on Untying the Knots in the Yogī’s Own Mind
(198) The Empowerment of Samādhi
(199) A Commentary on “Namo Buddhāya”
(200) The Accomplishment of Glorious Great Bliss
(201) Twenty-Five Stanzas of Pith Instructions on Letting Your Own Mind Take a Rest
(202) An Expression of Realization in Thirty Stanzas
Appendix: Jamyang Kyentsé Wangpo’s and Jamyang Kyentsé Wangchug’s Commentaries on Mitrayogī’s Letting Your Own Mind Take a Rest (Text 201) and Pith Instructions on Threefold Essential Reality
