Plate 1.

Wall mural at Dzogchen Monastery, East Tibet,

Showing Jigmey Lingpa, picture by the author, 2007.
 THE WAKING PRACTICE
by Jigmey Lingpa

Oh my, oh my! What a mess! Fortunate son of the family,

Dont let yourself be oppressed by deluded ignorance,
Instead, arouse intense perseverance and get up now!
And look, from time without beginning till now
Youve been content with a long sleep of ignorance;
Now instead, put some effort into virtue with your three
doors!

Cant deal with the sufferings of birth, sickness, old age, and
death?
Theres no better opportunity for beginning than this very
day!
The time has come to arouse perseverance for
accomplishment!
This is your one chance for a final and easy accomplishment13
So it is not a time to sit around in a state of procrastination.

Think of death and let that escort you to the end of practice.

13
In the Buddhist tradition, the path is described as the one that is both
accomplished easily and leads to the ultimate ease of a definite, final
peace.

1
2 THE LONGCHEN NYINGTHIG PRELIMINARIES

Theres no guaranteed lifespan and there are inconceivable

numbers of circumstances for death,
So when the time comes, if you havent obtained a profound
ability for it not to harm you,
Please, you tell me ordinary being, what about it will be all
right?

Dharmas lack a self; they are empty and free of elaboration.

Live them as though they were illusions, mirages,
Dreams, reflections, gandharvas cities, and echoes14.
You should know that the dharmas of samsara and nirvana
Are like the ten examples of illusory knowables
A moon in water, bubbles, visual distortions, emanations, and
so on.
Dharmas are not produced with a nature;
They have no abiding, no cessation, no coming and going.
They are referenceless and concept-less, and so are beyond
thought and verbal expression.
The time has come for you to get on with realizing that
meaning!

Namo gurubhya, namo devabhya, namo

dakkibhya15.
Oh my, oh my! Oh my, oh my! The impermanent dharmas of
samsara

14
These are several examples of emptiness from among the set of
thirteen examples given by the Buddha in the Prajnaparamita sutras.
Gandharvas are like the fairies of European tradition and their cities are
like the fairy citadels; apparent to those who can see them but just an
apparition put in place by the fairys themselves.
15
This Sanskrit says, Homage to the guru, homage to the personal
deity, and homage to the dakinis. It is a homage to the Three Roots.
 THE WAKING PRACTICE 3

Are a karmic ocean from which theres no release, which

migrators have stayed in for a long time16;
How I have compassion for the migrators tormented by
karma!
Grant your blessings so that the ocean of suffering can dry up!

Migrators tormented by ignorance and karma

Because of wanting happiness act out the karmas which bring
suffering;
How I have compassion for the migrators who have no skill in
method!
Grant your blessings that their obscurations of afflictions and
karmas be purified!

Here in this prison of being trapped by desires and grasped-

grasping17,
They are like forest creatures who keep on re-entering the
trap;
How I have compassion for these ones having the delusions of
ignorance!
Grant your blessings that they be shaken out of the pit of
samsara!

16
Migrators is a very commonly-used word for sentient beings. The
term in Sanskrit and Tibetan literally means goers. The term gives the
specific sense of beings who are in a constant state of migration as they
go from one existence to another. The example given when this word is
explained is that beings in samsara are like flies buzzing around in a jar,
zooming from one place to another and resting for a moment before
zooming off again. The term is often avoided these days and replaced
with being but doing so is short-sighted because it loses the image that
is being presented of the condition of sentient beings.
17
See the glossary.
4 THE LONGCHEN NYINGTHIG PRELIMINARIES

Here in this set of six karmic cities from which theres no

release,
Migrators go into one after another, like the rim of a bucket
wheel18 going round;
How I have compassion for the migrators of samsara from
which theres no release!
Grant your blessings that their births in the six classes become
doors to dharma!

They have the sufferings of birth, sickness, old age, and death
but
No matter how much they see this, they tolerate it without
fear;
Their human lives of freedom and endowment are spent on
the road of distraction!
Grant your blessings that they remember impermanence and
death!

Failing to acknowledge impermanence and lacking in

knowledge,
They continue to cling and be attached to this samsara,
Then spend their human lives in a state of pleasing their
desires;
Grant your blessings that they reverse their clinging to
samsara!

This container world impermanent and unstable disintegrates;

The contained sentient beings are an impermanent body-mind
complex;

18
An ancient Indian device for obtaining water from a well. It is a
circular rope that goes into the water and which has buckets tied on to
it at regular intervals. The rope goes down and up, around and around,
just like migrators go through samsara.
 THE WAKING PRACTICE 5

The four seasons of summer, winter, autumn, and spring are

impermanent;
Grant your blessings that disenchantment is born from deep
down!

Last year, this year, the first and last parts of each month,
The days, days and nights, and instants of time are
impermanent;
If I think about it carefully, death is what Ill meet;
Grant your blessings that Ill have the rock-solid
determination to get on with accomplishment!

This freedom and endowment is extremely difficult to obtain

but
When the lord of death strikes someone down with a fatal
disease,
How I have compassion for those dharma-less migrators who
go on empty handed!
Grant your blessings that the thought no time to waste is
born in my mindstream!

Oh my, oh my! What a mess! Oh compassionate Three

Jewels
And conquerors with your minds of love,
Please bless me and all the others in the six classes to be
Released right now from samsaras sufferings!