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This translation of a crucial Dzogchen text is provided solely for your personal reference, and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Please do not reproduce or distribute this version elsewhere, as it was translated from Tibetan using ChatGPT 5 Thinking using Prompt 1 in https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2025/04/ai-gemini-prompt-to-translate-atr-blog.html. Since I do not read Tibetan (I am only conversant with English and Chinese), I am unable to verify the correctness of this translation. If you are proficient in Tibetan and can provide feedback regarding its accuracy, please feel free to contact me: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/p/contact-us.html
Herein lies The Lamp That Dispels Darkness, the pith instruction of directly pointing to the nature of mind according to the tradition of the elderly realized ones.
Homage to the Guru and to Mañjuśrī, heroic wisdom.
There is no need for vast study and reflection; by guarding the mind’s own face according to the pith of the experiential lineage, even those engaged in the common mantra practices and the like, with only a small measure, proceed to the vidyādhara level by the power of the profound path. But this, too, is done by leaving this very mind to settle in its own natural way without imagining anything at all, maintaining an undistracted continuity of recollection in that very mode. Then there arises a darkness that is unconscious, inert, and dense, a cognition that is blank. In that case, so long as no clear seeing—the special insight of “knowing this and that”—has arisen, from that point it is proper for masters to apply the name “ignorance.” Again, from the side of not knowing how to identify it—saying “it is like this”—they give it the name “indeterminate.” And since there is no taking up any object or entertaining any thought, they call it “common equanimity.” In fact, what this is, is simply abiding in an ordinary state within the all-basis.
Although one must rely upon such methods of equipoise in order to generate nonconceptual pristine consciousness, because the pristine consciousness of knowing one’s own state has not yet dawned, such methods are not the main basis of meditation. When such an unconscious, inert, dense consciousness is experienced by the mind, since, in it, the cognizance that knows that and the thought-free abiding are directly observed there, instant presence—free from discursivity—shines as pellucid, without inside or outside, like a clear sky.
The object of experience and the experiencing agent are not two. Once you decisively ascertain the mind’s nature, the thought arises, ‘There is nothing beyond this.’ Because it cannot be stated or described as ‘It is like this,’ it is permissible to call it ‘inexpressible, free from extremes—fundamental luminosity,’ or ‘instant presence.’ As the pristine consciousness to which one has been introduced arises, certainty in the dharmatā of one’s mind is born; the cloying dense darkness clears, and—as when, at daybreak, one sees within one’s own house—confidence appears.
This is the pith-instruction called “opening the husk of unknowing.” In this way, when realized, one knows that the dharmatā is, by its own nature, unconstructed and has, from the very beginning, abided without being compounded by causes and conditions, and is not subject to any transition across the three times. Apart from that, there is not even a particle that can be taken as “mind” that has changed into something else. Although I have not spoken earlier about that unconscious, inert darkness, the very inability to say anything about it means it has not been decisively determined. And although I have also not spoken about the nature of rigpa, still, as to the point that cannot be thought or described, the decisive determination is this: like the distinction between blind and sighted, the difference in what cannot be told lies right here; thus, the division between the all-basis and the dharmakāya is gathered into this very essential point.
Therefore there are two—what is rightly or wrongly called “ordinary knowing,” “not attending with the mind,” and “free from expression.” If, with sound and meaning fully aligned, one fixes the essential point, one will gain the profound realization-experience of the dharma. When leaving mind to settle in its own way, some try to “guard just clarity” or “guard just knowing,” placing themselves in the mode of thinking that this is the clarity of mental awareness. Others hold to a blank vacuity, taking “knowing” to have vanished and “emptiness” to have occurred. These two are both attachments within the scope of mental cognition, clinging to the facets of apprehending clarity and apprehending emptiness. At that time, based on how the stream of memory and attention is functioning, you should look: if there is clinging to apprehended and apprehender, cut the tether of that conceptual consciousness; then instant presence—clear-empty, beyond extremes—decisively settles by itself, and a lucid vividness arises. To this, you may apply the name rigpa: pristine consciousness arising nakedly, free from any sense of ownership or appropriation.
This is the pith-instruction called “cutting the net of cyclic existence.” Likewise, without companion factors such as analysis and so on, rigpa, which is free of elaboration like a tip of butter or a point of gold, should be recognized through the gate of self-settling, self-clarity, as dharmatā. Because the nature of rigpa cannot be known by mere “knowing-about,” one must establish the locus of footing in that very state; hence, it is crucial to guard un-distractedly the stream of recollection that has left knowing to settle in its own way.
When it has been trained like this, at times there will be stupid nonconceptuality that is neither anything nor nothing; at times there will be nonconceptuality without emergence of clear purity; at times there will be pleasure with attachment; at times pleasure without attachment; at times there will be various clear experiences with fixation; at times the clear purity will be without stain and free of grasping; at times there will be rough experience that is disagreeable; at times smooth experience that pleases the mind; at times, because conceptuality becomes very coarse, one will be carried off into outward discursivity; at times, because dimness is not dispelled, there will be turbidity and the like. Beginningless habituations of conceptuality and the various gusts of karmic winds arise unpredictably and immeasurably. If one enters a long path, one will encounter many pleasant resting-places and varied stations; but whatever arises, do not appropriate it—strengthen your own path.
Especially, when untrained, there will be times when the many thoughts blaze like fire and periods when the experiences sway. Do not reject them; keep relaxed and pliant, without breaking the continuity; then later on, various experiences such as attainment will arise in stages.
At this time, in general, rigpa and non-rigpa, the all-basis and the dharmakāya, consciousness and pristine consciousness—examine them with the master’s pith on the basis of your own experience, and measure the recognition. While guarding, let consciousness rest in itself, unmoved like a still pool; then, making the dharmatā of that the principal pith-instruction—self-arisen, self-luminous pristine consciousness—you should not expand proliferations of taking and abandoning, nor swell the movements of scriptural study and inference. Doing so slightly obscures both calm and insight.
When the training is stabilized as a fusion of the cultivation of calm abiding that keeps steady the stream of recollection which leaves mind to settle, and the self-powered special insight that knows one’s own face as self-clarity, then natural settling (rang-babs, “settling as it is”) and the innate luminosity of one’s own nature will be known as indivisible from the very beginning; the self-arisen pristine cognition will appear; and the intent of the Great Perfection will become manifest.
This is the pith-instruction on abiding evenly, like space.
Likewise, as Śrī Saraha says: “Abandon thought and what is to be thought, and remain as an infant without thought.” In this way the methods of settling are taught. And: “Hold to the guru’s words, and practice with diligence.” In this way, having been endowed with the pith-instruction that introduces rigpa, spontaneous presence will occur without doubt.
Thus, from the very beginning rigpa, the rang-byung pristine consciousness that arises together with one’s own mind, emerges inseparably together with mind and is itself the dharmatā of mind; it is the fundamental luminosity of the real meaning, which is not different from the dharmatā of all dharmas. Therefore, this way of leaving to settle and of knowing one’s own face—of rigpa, or the essence of mind, or the dharmatā—is a pith-instruction that gathers a hundred essentials into one. This is what must be guarded continuously. As to the measure of cultivation: it is grasped by the luminosity of the night. As for the signs of the right path: faith, compassion, wisdom, and the increase of your own power. Knowing ease and working with only a small measure are known from one’s own experience. As to depth and swiftness: with great exertion this is accomplished; engaging in this and other approaches, when these accord with your measure of realization, certainty is attained.
By meditating the luminous clarity of one’s own mind, one obtains the fruition as well: the elaborations of conceptuality and their habitual patterns are naturally expanded in knowledge, and as original certainty is secured, the three kāyas are spontaneously perfect.
Profound! Guhya! Samaya!
On the twelfth day of the Fire-Horse month, though not much applied to study and reflection, for the sake of those common mantra-practitioners and the like who wish to train in the mind’s own experience, I, Mipham Jampel Dorjé, set down these deep instructions—clear in Dharma words and in accord with experience—drawn from the red-guidance instructions of many accomplished elders. Mangalam.
