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A Lamp to Dispel Darkness
An Instruction Pointing Directly to Mind’s Face, According to the Tradition of the Old Realized Ones
By Mipham Jampal Dorje
Original Tibetan text: https://www.lotsawahouse.org/bo/tibetan-masters/mipham/lamp-to-dispel-darkness
Gemini Prompt reference used for the earlier draft: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2025/04/ai-gemini-prompt-to-translate-atr-blog.html
Translator’s Note for This Fifth-Pass Tibetan-Anchor Working Version
This fifth-pass working translation is provided solely for personal reference. It is not a critical edition and its accuracy is not guaranteed. In this pass, the Tibetan text itself is treated as the source authority. Public English translations, including Lotsawa House, are treated as contaminated comparison witnesses only; none is allowed to determine wording where Tibetan/source-control, the [redacted] criticism supplied by the user, or AtR terminology safeguards point elsewhere. It should still be reviewed by someone proficient in Tibetan and Dzogchen before being reproduced or distributed.
In this revision, rig pa is not translated as “awareness,” “awareness of awareness,” “reflexive awareness,” or svasaṃvedana. Following the Acarya Malcolm/Kyle Dixon criticism supplied by the user and the Prompt 1/6 termbank, rig pa is kept as rigpa and glossed as vidyā / knowledge where needed. Ye shes is rendered as pristine consciousness, sems as mind, rnam shes / ordinary cognitive modes as consciousness, kun gzhi as all-basis, and lhun grub as natural perfection rather than “spontaneous presence.”
If you are proficient in Tibetan and can offer corrections regarding this working translation, please contact: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/p/contact-us.html
The Homage
Homage to the Guru and Mañjuśrī Jñānasattva.
The Power of the Profound Path
Without needing extensive training in hearing, reflection, and practice, one may simply sustain the recognition of mind’s own face according to the pith instructions of the experiential lineage. By the power of this profound path, even ordinary village mantrikas and the like can, without too much difficulty, reach the level of a vidyādhara.
Yet this is done by letting this very mind settle in its own natural way, without deliberately imagining anything at all, while maintaining an undistracted continuity of recollection in that very mode. When this is done, there arises a cloying, dense darkness: a dull, inert consciousness, blank and devoid of active thought.
1. Opening the Husk of Unknowing
At that time, so long as clear seeing has not arisen — the special insight, vipaśyanā, that discerns precisely what is what — masters may rightly call that state ignorance. Since one cannot identify it by saying, “It is like this,” it is also called indeterminate. And because there is no taking up of any object and no thought being entertained, it is called common equanimity. In reality, it is merely abiding in an ordinary state within the all-basis.
Such methods of equipoise are useful as conditions for bringing forth non-conceptual pristine consciousness. Yet because the pristine consciousness that recognizes the state itself has not yet dawned, this cannot count as the main practice of Dzogchen meditation. As the Prayer of Kuntuzangpo says:
A dense state in which nothing at all is recalled —
This itself is the cause of ignorance’s confusion.
Therefore, when mind experiences such an unconscious, inert, dense state, look naturally and gently at the knowing of that very state. Right there, rigpa, free from discursiveness, is vividly clear, beyond any notion of inside or outside, like a clear sky.
Although there is no dualistic separation between the experienced object and the experiencing agent, if certainty about one’s own nature arises — a sense that, “Apart from this there is nothing else,” then, because it cannot be stated or described as “it is like this,” it may be called the primordial radiant clarity beyond extremes and expression, or rigpa. Since the pristine consciousness to which one has been introduced has dawned, the cloying dense darkness clears away. Just as one can see inside a house when day breaks, certainty arises regarding the dharmatā, the true nature, of one’s own mind.
This is the pith instruction called Opening the Husk of Unknowing.
2. Cutting the Net of Cyclic Existence
When it is realized in this way, one knows that dharmatā, by its very nature, is unconstructed. From the very beginning, it has abided without being compounded by causes and conditions, and it does not undergo transition or change across the three times. Apart from that, not even the slightest particle of something called “mind” is observed.
Earlier, the unconscious, inert darkness was not described. Its very inability to be described means that it lacks decisive determination. Rigpa, too, cannot be thought or described; nevertheless, the decisive point is this: the difference between these two kinds of inexpressibility is like the difference between blindness and clear sight. Thus, the distinction between the all-basis and the dharmakāya is gathered into this essential point.
Therefore, terms such as ordinary consciousness, not attending mentally, and freedom from expression have two sides: authentic and unauthentic. When sound and meaning are brought fully into accord and the essential point is fixed, one gains experience of the profound meaning of the Dharma.
When leaving mind to settle in its own way, some try to guard “mere clarity” or “mere knowing,” settling into a mode of ordinary mental consciousness while thinking, “This is the clarity of consciousness.” Others focus on a blank vacuity, taking “knowing” to have disappeared and “emptiness” to have occurred. Yet both are attachments within the range of ordinary mental consciousness: one clings to the apprehended and apprehender of clarity, while the other clings to the apprehended and apprehender of emptiness.
At that point, look at how the stream of memory and attention is functioning. If there is clinging to an apprehended clarity or emptiness and to an apprehender of it, cut the tether of that conceptual consciousness. Then rigpa — clear and empty, beyond extremes — is decisively ascertained by itself, and a lucid vividness arises. This is called recognizing the face: rigpa, pristine consciousness arising uncovered, free from the husk of grasping and appropriation.
This is the pith instruction called Cutting the Net of Cyclic Existence.
3. Remaining in Space-Like Equality
Likewise, without relying on companion factors such as analysis and so forth, rigpa free from elaboration should be recognized as dharmatā through the gate of self-settling and self-clarity — like a grain of rice freed from its husk.
Because the nature of rigpa is not known merely through conceptual knowing-about, one must establish one’s footing in that very state. Therefore, it is crucial to guard, without distraction, the stream of recollection that lets knowing settle in its own natural way.
When one trains in this way, at times there will be dull non-conceptuality in which one does not know what is what. Sometimes there will be a transparent non-conceptuality in which the clarity of special insight has not yet emerged. Sometimes there will be blissful experiences with attachment, and sometimes blissful experiences without attachment. Sometimes there will be various experiences of clarity that involve holding, and sometimes there will be clear, lucid vividness that is unsullied and free from holding.
Sometimes there will be rough, unsettling experiences; sometimes smooth, pleasing experiences. Sometimes, because conceptuality becomes very coarse, one is carried off into outward discursivity. Sometimes, because dullness and clarity have not been distinguished, the state becomes murky. Beginningless habituations of conceptuality, together with the various gusts of karmic winds, arise without certainty or fixed measure. This is like traveling a long road and encountering many places, some pleasant and some difficult. Therefore, whatever arises, do not deliberately hold to it; keep strengthening your own path.
Especially when one is untrained, there will be times when the many thoughts blaze like fire and times when experiences waver. Do not reject them. Remain relaxed and pliant, without breaking the continuity. Later, meditative experiences such as attainment will arise in stages.
At this time, in general, once the distinctions between recognizing and not recognizing rigpa, between all-basis and dharmakāya, and between consciousness and pristine consciousness have been discerned through the lama’s pith instructions and through one’s own experience, one should sustain the introduction with confidence. Just as water becomes clear by itself when it is not stirred, when consciousness is left in its own place, unmoved like a still pool, the key point is that its dharmatā — self-arisen, self-clear pristine consciousness — becomes clear by itself. This should be made the main point of practice.
One should not expand proliferations of adopting and abandoning, nor swell the movement of scriptural study and inference, thinking, “Is this object of my meditation consciousness or pristine consciousness?” To do so slightly obscures both calm abiding and special insight.
When the training becomes stable as the union of calm abiding and special insight — the calm abiding that keeps steady the stream of recollection leaving mind to settle, and the special insight by which one’s own face is recognized as self-clarity — then natural settling and the innate radiant clarity of one’s own nature are known as indivisible from the very beginning. The self-arisen pristine consciousness, the intent of the Great Perfection, becomes manifest.
This is The Instruction on Remaining in Space-Like Equality.
Supporting Quotations
Thus, strictly in accordance with the glorious Saraha:
Utterly abandon thoughts and objects of thought,
— Saraha
And remain without thought, like a young child.
And regarding the method of resting:
Focus on the guru’s words and apply great effort—
— Saraha
And if one possesses the pith instruction pointing out rigpa:
There is no doubt that the co-emergent nature will arise.
— Saraha
The Condensed Point
As stated there, the co-emergent nature of mind — rigpa, self-originated pristine consciousness — has arisen together with one’s own ordinary mind from the very beginning. Since this is not different from the dharmatā of all phenomena, it is also the genuine primordial radiant clarity.
Therefore, this way of resting naturally while sustaining dharmatā — the essence of mind, the recognition of rigpa’s own face — is the pith instruction that gathers a hundred key points into one. This is what must be guarded continuously.
As for the measure of familiarization, it is to maintain radiant clarity even during sleep. As for the signs of the right path, faith, compassion, and wisdom increase naturally. Through one’s own experience, one knows that realization is easy and involves little hardship. As for the profundity and swiftness of this approach, one attains certainty by comparing the measure of realization with those who enter this or other paths only after accomplishing them through very great effort.
As for the fruition attained by meditating on the radiant clarity of one’s own mind: when the obscurations of conceptual thoughts upon that mind, together with their habitual tendencies, naturally clear away, the twofold knowing expands without effort. One seizes the stronghold of one’s own primordial state, and the three kāyas are naturally perfected.
Profound. Guhya. Samaya.
Colophon
On the twelfth day of the second lunar month in the Fire Horse year (1906), this profound instruction was arranged by Mipham Jampal Dorje for village mantrikas and others who, though they do not exert themselves greatly in hearing and reflection, nevertheless wish to practice the face of mind. It accords with the easy-to-understand Dharma language of direct experiential guidance from most of the old realized ones. Virtue. Maṅgalam.
Revision Notes
- rig pa: kept as rigpa and glossed as vidyā/knowledge, rather than translating it as “awareness.”
- ye shes: rendered as pristine consciousness, not “wisdom” in a generic sense.
- kun gzhi: rendered as all-basis.
- sems: rendered as mind; ordinary cognitive modes are rendered as consciousness where appropriate.
- lhun grub: rendered as natural perfection / naturally perfected, avoiding “spontaneous presence.”
- gcer/bare language: rendered contextually as uncovered, direct, or laid bare, not as physically “naked.”
- Anti-reification: this fourth pass continues reducing repeated “intrinsic reality” language by using dharmatā or true nature where appropriate, so as not to imply a substantial inner entity.
- Fifth-pass Tibetan-anchor review: the Tibetan title, homage, opening verse, dull/inert/dense-state terminology, Kuntuzangpo quote, three instruction titles, rice-husk image, Saraha sequence, and colophon were rechecked against the Tibetan page where accessible, with Lotsawa and Wallace used only as comparison witnesses.
- Acarya Malcolm / reflexive-awareness safeguard: the supplied screenshot was treated as a release-critical warning. This pass removes wording that could suggest “awareness of awareness” or reflexive-awareness/svasaṃvedana as the meaning of rig pa. Non-source explanatory glosses have been removed from the body; any remaining doctrinal caution is confined to this QA note.
