I take refuge in the Guru.

ཨོཾ་ཨཱཿ གུ་རུ་བཛྲ་དྷ་ར་བྷཊྚཱ་ར་ཀ་མཉྫུ་ཤྲཱི་ཝཱགིནྡྲ་སུ་མ་ཏི་ཛྙཱ་ན་ཤཱ་ས་ན་དྷ་ར་ས་མུ་དྲ་ཤྲཱི་བྷ་དྲ་སརྦ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུཾ་ཧཱུཾ།

A hundred things may be explained, a thousand told,
But one things only should you grasp.
Know one thing and everything is freed –
Remain within your inner nature, your awareness!

Guru Padmasambhava

If I cling to conditions, then I cling to their passing. I have a heaven & a hell within; no need to wonder what exists after death.

If I have no conditions, then there is no passing. There is neither heaven nor hell; no need to wonder what exists after death.

—Al Ablah

"All of this is merely mind,
Coming about like an illusion.
Through this, good and bad actions,
As well as good and bad rebirths [occur].

Through the wheel of mind stopping,
All phenomena come to a standstill.
Therefore, the nature of phenomena is identityless.
Hence, the nature of phenomena is completely pure."

Nagarjuna, Mahāyānaviṃśikā Verses 19-20

"Concerning this statement, “Form is empty of form,” there are also three aspects of form—imagined form, imputed form, and the form of the true nature.

That which is the form of entities apprehended by childish ordinary persons as characteristics suitable to be form and so forth is known as “imagined form.”

Precisely that, in whatever aspect it becomes an object of consciousness appearing as an external entity, is known as “imputed form.”

That which is free from the aspects of both the imagined and the imputed, and is solely the fully established thusness, is known as “the form of the true nature.”

That which is the fully established, the form of the true nature, is empty of the characteristics of existence as imagined form and so forth, and also empty of form that appears in the aspect of an object imputed as form, so it is known as “empty.”

Thus it is explained. But you may have doubts, wondering, “Does that which is the form of the true nature, empty of imagined and imputed form, have some other characteristic of form? Why is it even known as ‘form’?”

Therefore it is explained, “That which is the emptiness of form is also not form.” Precisely that which is empty of imagined and imputed form is the characteristic of the fully established. That form of the true nature is not the quintessence of form, because it is in all aspects isolated from the aspect of form."

Vasubandhu, Vast Explication (Bṛhaṭṭīkā)

"I bow at the feet of the masters who teach that, like a butter lamp within a vase, the treasure of a pauper, and so forth, the sugata essence, luminosity, or the dharmakāya exists within the sheath of the relative, incidental aggregates.

I bow at the feet of the masters who carefully distinguish, “All imagined and dependent phenomena are nonexistent, but the fully established true nature is never nonexistent,” teaching what transcends existence and nonexistence, and eternalism and nihilism.

I bow at the feet of the masters who teach, “All relative phenomena are merely the dependent origination of cause and result, but the self-arisen absolute transcends dependent origination,” teaching the difference between primordial awareness that arises from conditions, and what is self-arisen."

Dolpopa

“The mind cannot be grasped; it is the expanse of emptiness

Consciousness is clear and empty, free from conceptual mind

Leave the mind as it is and look, with awareness observing itself

And you will meet insight meditation face to face”

~ Gyalwa Yangonpa

"Since the apparent does not ultimately exist it is empty-of-self.
It appears to consciousness but does not appear to primordial awareness.
Since the ultimate exists, it is empty of other.
It appears to primordial awareness but not to consciousness."

Dolpopa

"Whatever is the dharmatā form is the primordial awareness of emptiness. Whatever is the primordial awareness of emptiness, appears as the dharmatā form.

Even if you understand merely that these two have a common locus, in order to refute any doubt that thinks it possible for there to be empty primordial awareness that is not the ultimate form (don dam gyi gzugs), and that it is possible for there to be ultimate form that is not empty primordial awareness [there are the lines]: “Emptiness is no other than form.”

Here ‘empty’ [does] not [mean] completely empty, but primordial awareness empty of dualism. The ultimate form aggregate (don dam pa’i gzug phungs) is not the form aggregate. The ultimate aspect of the form aggregate within the [endowed with] all supreme aspects dharmadhātu is the dharmatā form aggregate or the ultimate form aggregate."

Tāranātha

The 8 Negations

No origination, no extinction;
No permanence, no impermanence;
No identity, no difference;
No arrival, no departure.

"I bow at the feet of the masters who teach that all phenomena merely arise from conditions, without any self, sentient beings, soul, or creator, and are like a dream, an illusion, a mirage, or an echo.

I bow at the feet of the masters who clearly teach that objects appear to be external, but are merely the habitual propensities of mind, and that even mind, intellect, and consciousness are mere names, mere designations, just emptiness like space.

I bow at the feet of the masters who teach that the aggregates of form and so forth are like foam, water bubbles, a mirage, and so forth, and who teach that the sensory bases are the same as an empty town, the constituents the same as vicious vipers.

I bow at the feet of the masters who teach that all the phenomena of existence and nirvāṇa are birthless and ceaseless, free from going, coming, and remaining, without extremes and middle, each empty of essence."

Dolpopa

"Carefully distinguishing
empty of self-nature and empty of other,
what is relative is all taught
to be empty of self-nature,
and what is absolute is taught
to be precisely empty of other."

Dolpopa

"If the absolute were not pure awareness, it would not be omniscient, because the absolute dharmakāya and svābhāvikakāya would not be pure awareness.
If it were not omniscient, it would not be Buddha.
If it were not Buddha, it would not be the dharmakāya.

If the absolute is pure awareness, that entails unconditioned pure awareness.
It also entails permanent and stable pure awareness.
It also entails eternal and everlasting pure awareness.
It also entails the pure awareness of the sugata essence."

Dolpopa

"Therefore, that which is the primordial awareness of the basic space of phenomena is a permanent, unconditioned primordial awareness, an absolute primordial awareness of indivisible space and pure awareness; a primordial awareness of flawless paradox beyond simile; a primordial awareness of natural innateness, a natural, immutable, fully established primordial awareness, and a primordial awareness of natural great bliss."

Dolpopa

The Unborn is the ground of everything; the Unborn is the beginning of everything. Because there is no ground for anything outside of the Unborn and because before the Unborn there was no beginning for anything, the Unborn is the foundation of all Buddhas.”

—Bankei Yōtaku

If we follow the evolution of a particular universe (world system) we will see four stages: (1) Emptiness (the era of space particles), (2) Formation, (3) Abiding, and (4) Destruction. At the destruction of one system, the fire, earth, air, and water particles separate and perhaps even fall apart, but space particles remain. This is the stage of Emptiness. When motivated through the accumulated karma of all the sentient beings that existed in the previous world system, the space particles begin the process of forming a new universe from the reformed elements. First air particles coagulate to form wind, which then causes the fire particles to join and create lightning. From this process water particles form rain, and the resulting rainbows herald the joining of earth particles. The order of this "creation" is mirrored in the structure of the world system in the Abhidharma and Kalachakra systems depicted above, with the air disk being the lowest layer of the base of the world, topped in succession by disks of fire, water, and earth. Sentient beings begin to populate all possible realms (e.g. various hell realms, animal, human, and deities). During this stage, humans are granted an "infinite" lifespan (until the end of the age). When this process is complete, the Stage of Formation ends. The Stage of Abiding is subdivided into many eras, in which the lifespan of humans changes. We are currently said to be in a degenerate age, when the lifespan is decreasing and is about 80 years. The Stage of Destruction begins when no more sentient beings are reborn in the hell realms, and the hells begin to empty out (as various beings exhaust the karma that brought them there in the first place). Likewise, all higher realms of existence are emptied out in sequence. Finally the world system is destroyed by a great fire. According to the Abhidharmakosha there are also higher cycles where every 8th destruction is accomplished by a flood, and every 8th of those cycles, by a great wind, leading to a "great cycle of destruction." This process is eternal and without beginning or end, and in a sense defines time itself (as a series of changes of impermanent reality).

"Is a relative possible without an absolute?
Is what is pervaded possible without a pervading property?

Is what is supported possible without a supporting ground?
Is the incidental possible without a primordial?

Are phenomena possible without a true nature?
If they were possible, would they not become an omnipresent true nature?"

"[...] In the division of the absolute fully established nature alone, there is not the slightest division of essence. [...]"

Dolpopa

"Vulcan is that divine power which presides over the spermatic and physical productive powers which the universe contains: for whatever Nature accomplishes by verging to bodies, that Vulcan effects in a divine and exempt manner, by moving Nature, and using her as an instrument in his own proper fabrication. For natural heat has a Vulcanian characteristic, and was produced by Vulcan for the purpose of fashioning a corporeal nature. Vulcan, therefore, is that power which perpetually presides over the fluctuating nature of bodies; and hence, says Olympiodorus, he operates the bellows, which occultly signifies his operating in natures."

Thomas Taylor, footnote to his translation of the Orphic Hymn to Vulcan

Brothers, formless states are more peaceful than states of form; cessation is more peaceful than formless states...

There are beings in the realm of luminous form,
and others stuck in the formless.
Not understanding cessation,
they return in future lives.

But the people who completely understand form,
not stuck in the formless,
released in cessation—
they are conquerors of death.

Having directly experienced the deathless element,
free of attachments;
having realised relinquishment
of attachments, the undefiled
fully awakened Buddha teaches
the sorrowless, stainless state.

—Tikanipata 3