[E-Book] The Little Hidden Harvest (ePub)

BEYOND EFFORT

From the bSam-gtan mig-sgron of Nubchen Sangye Yeshe, p. 174b, 1. 4 (344)

This is how Buddhagupta explained the meaning of ‘beyond effort’.

According to the system of the great superior yoga,

The uncorrected condition of the universe is itself the pure dimension of the palace of the gods;

The beings of the six lokas who dwell there are illuminates, in the light of the self-originated vajra. The three worlds are the state itself of body, voice and mind.

The passions are liberated in the nature of existence as it is (chos nyid);

Suffering is self-perfected in the (state of) great happiness,

Obstacles are spontaneously consumed in the fire of wisdom.

Birth and death become indestructible life,

Old age and debility are realization in changeless essence.

The title ’sBas-pa'i rgum-chung’ is in archaic Tibetan. The term rgum, from the verb rgum-pa (‘harvest’ or ‘collect’), is in any case still current spoken usage in eastern Tibet (Khams). Thus, for example, ‘gather wood for the fire’ would be bud-shing rgum-pa. In the same dialect, rgum-pa is also the wheat and barley which birds, and particularly ravens, gather and carry off to an isolated place, to be hidden and stored for food, and from which, in the spring, emerge tufts of grain. Such a gathering of kemels is called, to be exact, pho-rog rgum-chung, that is, ‘the little harvest of the ravens’. In any case, then, rgum-chung means ‘little harvest’ or ‘little gathering’.