"If you wish to attain unsurpassed enlightenment,
Which has inconceivable greatness,
Be intent on practice and achieve its heart,
For enlightenment depends upon practice.

As this body of perfect leisure and opportunity
Was very difficult to obtain, and once obtained
Will be very difficult to possess again,
Make it meaningful by striving at practice."

Mahāyāna-patha-sādhana-saṃgraha

“Pure mind is like the empty sky,
without memory, supreme meditation;
it is our own nature, unstirring, uncontrived,
and wherever that abides is the superior mind,
one in buddhahood without any sign,
one in view free of limiting elaboration,
one in meditation free of limiting ideation,
one in conduct free of limiting endeavor,
and one in fruition free of limiting attainment.

vast! spacious!
released as it stands!
with neither realization nor non-realization;
experience consummate! no mind!
it is open to infinity.”

- Longchenpa

Prof. Alexis Sanderson - Readings in the Tantrāloka I
___________

In these lectures Professor Sanderson will introduce the opening verses of the Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta, that author's monumental exposition of the Saiva Tantras from the standpoint of the Śākta Śaiva tradition known as the Trika and the philosophical non-dualism of the Pratyabhijñā texts.

Alexis Sanderson began his Indological career as a student of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1969, studying the Kashmirian Śaiva literature in Kashmir with the Śaiva Guru Swami Lakshman Joo from 1971 to 1977. He was Associate Professor (University Lecturer) of Sanskrit at Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College from 1977 to 1992 and then the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College from 1992 to 2015.

Since then, he has been preparing a critical edition of the Tantrāloka with a translation and commentary. His field is early medieval religion in India and Southeast Asia, focusing on the history of Śaivism, its relations with the state, and its influence on Buddhism and Vaishnavism.

https://youtu.be/hxaz7FbtPFk

- Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

"Buddha is without beginning, middle, or end. He is peace itself, fully self-awakened and self-expanded in buddhahood. Having reached this state, he shows the indestructible, permanent path so that those who have no realization may realize. Wielding the supreme sword and vajra of knowledge and compassionate love, he cuts the seedling of suffering and destroys the wall of doubts along with its surrounding thicket of various views. I bow down to this Buddha.

Being uncreated and spontaneously present, not a realization due to extraneous conditions, wielding knowledge, compassionate love, and ability, buddhahood has [the qualities of] the two benefits.

Its nature is without beginning, middle, or end; hence [the state of a buddha] is uncreated. Since it possesses the peaceful dharmakaya, it is described as being “spontaneously present.” Since it must be realized through self-awareness, it is not a realization due to extraneous conditions. These three aspects being realized, there is knowledge."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra

"This mind being by nature clear light, they have seen the poisons to be essenceless and therefore truly realize [the nature of] every being as peace, the ultimate non-existence of a self. They perceive that the Perfect Buddha pervades them all. They possess the understanding that is free from the veils. Thus seeing that beings are utterly pure and that [this purity pervades] their limitless number, they are endowed with the vision of primordial wisdom."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra;

"The perfect buddhakaya is all-embracing, suchness cannot be differentiated, and all beings have the disposition. Thus they always have buddha nature. The Buddha has said that all beings have buddha nature since buddha wisdom is always present within the assembly of beings, since this undefiled nature is free from duality, and since the disposition to buddhahood has been named after its fruit."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra;

"The [dharmakaya] is purity, since its nature is pure and [even] the remaining imprints are fully removed.
It is true self, since all conceptual elaboration in terms of self and non-self is totally stilled.
It is true happiness, since [even] the aggregates of mental nature and their causes are reversed.
It is permanence, since the cycle of existence and the state beyond pain are realized as one."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra;

"The nature of mind as the element of space does not [depend upon] causes or conditions, nor does it [depend on] a gathering of these.
It has neither arising, cessation, nor abiding.

This clear and luminous nature of mind is as changeless as space.
It is not afflicted by desire and so on, the adventitious stains, which are sprung from incorrect thoughts.

It is not brought into existence by the water of karma, of the poisons, and so on.
Hence it is also not consumed by the cruel fires of dying, falling sick, and aging."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra;

I have seen much of samsara. I am not even minutely attached to the trappings of royal life. A golden palace is no different from a prison. Queens are no different from the daughters of Mara [evil forces]. The three sweet substances are no different from dog-meat, pus, and blood. There is not the slightest difference between the beauty of wearing silks and jewels and donning a filthy blanket in a cemetery. I shall go into the forest to meditate.

—Atisha

"There is no birth like the human birth. Both the gods and the manes desire it. For the Jiva the human body is of all the bodies the most difficult to come by.

For this it is said that the human birth is attained with extreme difficulty It is said in all the Sastras that of the jiva's eighty-four lakhs of births the human birth is the most fruitful. In no other birth can the Jiva acquire knowledge of the Truth. Human birth is the stepping stone to the path of Liberation. But rare are the meritorious who come by it."

Visvasara Tantra

"Here on this mutable and ignorant earth, who is the lover and who is the friend? All passes here, nothing remains the same. None is for any on this transient globe. He whom thou lovest now, a stranger came and into a far strangeness shall depart."

Sri Aurobindo

In Tantrāloka 16.59cd-61ab paraphrases, rather freely, the Netratantra as noscriptural authority used by Acharya for the view that sacrifice liberates; it does so by virtue of being an unusual kind of initiation (dīkşā):


"And it is taught in the venerable Mrtyuñjaya (Netratantra): When the bonds have been severed a body does not arise again for the victim (bound soul) because of disjunction from the three malas. It is agreed that the body falls away when the flood of [karmic] dharma and adharma is stopped. Therefore this is not killing but an extraordinary initiation. For killing is the separation of the vital energies from a being that is formly bound, but this is a
fusion of the bound soul in the act of worshipping God."


Note one thing [Šiva]yojanā, -yojanikā is the ritual fusion of the bound soul with Šiva during initiation, In Netratantra 4.8-9 it specific shows the instructions of which acolytes are fused with what level of Śiva.

The True Nature of Mind
By Tulku Thondup

To understand how the world can be a creation of the mind, it is useful to recognize that our mind has two aspects: ordinary mind and enlightened mind. Ordinary mind, also known in Mahayana teachings as deluded mind, is conceptual, dualistic, and emotional. Enlightened mind also known as the awakened state or Buddha-nature is the true and pure nature of the mind. For most of us, the dualistic concepts, unhealthy emotions, and obsessive sensations (particularly strong clinging and craving) of our ordinary mind cover the enlightened aspect of our mind. These thoughts are like coverings that obstruct us from realizing and manifesting our true nature like clouds covering the sun.

Consider the difference between how an awakened person and an ordinary person view a flower. When an awakened person sees a flower, they see it through their enlightened wisdom-eyes that are free from the shrouds of duality, emotions and sensations, and that dwell instead in the nature of boundless openness, also known as “emptiness” nature. By contrast, when an ordinary person sees a flower, they see it through the eyes of their deluded mind, which is characterized by duality. Duality leads to attachment and aversion, which, as they become increasingly tight and obsessive, result in the familiar cycle of fireworks and misery.

"[Enlightenment, of which the Buddha] said: “It is by nature clear light,” is similar to the sun and space.
It is free from the stains of the adventitious poisons and hindrances to knowledge, the veils of which obscured it [like] a dense sea of clouds.

Buddhahood is permanent, steadfast, and immutable, possessing all the unpolluted buddha qualities.
It is attained on the basis of [two] primordial wisdoms: [one is] free from ideation with regard to phenomena, [the other is] discriminative.

Buddhahood is indivisible, yet can be divided according to its property of [twofold] purity.
[Thus] it has two features, which are abandonment and primordial wisdom, similar to space and the sun.

Luminous clear light is not created.
It is indivisibly manifest [in the nature of beings] and holds all the buddha properties outnumbering the grains of sand in the river Ganges.

By nature not existent, pervasive, and adventitious, the veils of the poisons and of the hindrances to knowledge are described as being similar to a cloud."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra

"Rid of pollution [and] all-pervasive, [true buddhahood] has an indestructible nature since it is steadfast, at peace, permanent, and unchanging. As the abode [of qualities] a tathagata is similar to space. For the six sense-faculties of a saintly being it forms the cause to experience their respective [pure] objects [of perception]."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra

"Buddhahood is inconceivable, permanent, steadfast, at peace, and immutable.
It is utterly peaceful, pervasive, without thought, and unattached like space.
It is free from hindrance and coarse objects of contact are eliminated.
It cannot be seen or grasped. It is virtuous and free from pollution."

Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra