I bow at the feet of the holy gurus.
Here I sit in Richen Gang, in a hermitage
Where meditation spontaneously achieves results,
A Dharma site at the foot of Odey Gunggyal,
A magnificent mountain rivaling Mount Kailash itself.
Thoughts of my guru Khedrub Norzang Gyatso arise,
And I recollect his immeasurable kindness.
A flood of emotion surges up from within me,
And every hair on my body trembles with joy.
I call out to him with a plaintive voice:
Pray, come forth from the sphere of the unmanifest.
Emanate the radiant countenance of your holy body;
With speech, release a great rainfall of the Dharma;
And lead living beings to the state of englightenment
That is inseparable from your peerless mind.
O most holy root guru, through your kind guidance
I mastered the yogas of the two tantric stages
Of glorious Kalachakra, king of the tantras,
As well as its branches, like astrology,
That facilitate higher spiritual knowledge.
Without relying on mere words alone
You led me to a naked understanding
Of the teachings of Nagajurna, Aryadeva, and Tsongkhapa
Concerning the ultimate mode of being: -
That all things abide in the nature of emptiness;
That nothing exists in its own right;
That things are mere mental projections
Imputed on their bases of designation.
You helped me to see the great inner enemy,
The I-grasping habit that sees things as real,
And to see its limitlessly harmful effects.
You also showed me how to destroy it;
So now everything manifest in the sphere of perception
Effortless arises within the path of the void.
Yet you did not let me fall into nihilism,
But pointed out the relevance of how
All the things that appear, though mere labels,
Nonetheless continue to function conventionally
According to the laws of cause and effect.
Thus you freed me from the terrible cliffs
Of grasping at the extremes of "is" and "is not."
O most kind root guru, it was you who taught me
How to extract the quintessential meanings
Of all the profound sutras and tantras
And helped me to find the inner strength
Of a mind well trained in the wisdom tradition.
Recollecting the great kindness you showed to me,
I can easily see you as a fully accomplished Buddha;
And within that frame of devotion I call to you:
Please keep me in your thoughts forever
And bestow spiritual powers mundane and supreme.
This song of the spontaneous experience
Of the profound yogas of the great middle view
Was composed by the Buddhist monk Gendun Gyatso
When he experienced strong thoughts of his holy guru
While living in retreat at Tosamling Monastery.
May it contribute to goodness on earth
And to the strength of joy and peace in the world.