The Royal Song of Saraha

i bow down to noble manjusri

i bow down to him who has conquered the finite

1.

as calm water lashed by wind

turns into waves and rollers,

so the king thinks of saraha

in many ways, although one man.

2.

to a fool who squints

one lamp is as two,

where seen and seer are not two, ah! the mind

works on the thingness of them both.

3.

though the house-lamps have been lit,

the blind live on in the dark.

though spontaneity is all-encompassing and close,

to the deluded it remains always far away.

4.

though there may be many rivers, they are one in the sea,

though there may be many lies, one truth will conquer all.

when one sun appears, the dark,

however deep, will vanish.

5.

as a cloud that rises from the sea

absorbing rain, the earth embraces,

so, like the sky, the sea remains

without increasing or decreasing.

6.

so from spontaneity that's unique,

replete with the buddha's perfections,

are all sentient beings born, and in it come

to rest. but it is neither concrete nor abstract.

7.

they walk other paths and so forsake true bliss,

seeking the delights that stimulants produce.

the honey in their mouths, and to them so near,

will vanish if at once they do not drink it.

8.

beasts do not understand the world

to be a sorry place. not so the wise

who the heavenly nectar drink

while beasts hunger for the sensual.

9.

to a fly that likes the smell of putrid

meat, the fragrance of sandalwood is foul.

beings who discard nirvana

covet coarse samsara's realm.

10.

an ox's footprints filled with water

will soon dry up; so with a mind that's firm

but full of qualities that are not perfect,

these imperfections will in time dry up.

11.

like salt sea water that turns

sweet when drunk up by the clouds,

so a firm mind that works for others turns

the poison of sense-objects into nectar.

12.

if ineffable, never is one unsatisfied,

if unimaginable, it must be bliss itself.

though from a cloud one fears the thunderclap,

the crops ripen when from it pours the rain.

13.

it is in the beginning, in the middle, and

the end; yet end and beginning are nowhere else.

all those with minds deluded by interpretative thoughts 

are in two minds and so discuss 

nothingness and compassion as two things.

14.

bees know that in flowers

honey can be found.

that samsara and nirvana are not two

how will the deluded ever understand?

15

when the deluded in a mirror look

they see a face, not a reflection.

so the mind that has truth denied

relies on that which is not true.

16.

though the fragrance of a flower cannot be touched,

'tis all pervasive and at once perceptible.

so by unpatterned being-in-self

recognize the round of mystic circles.

17.

when (in winter) still water by the wind is stirred,

it takes (as ice) the shape and texture of a rock.

when the deluded are disturbed by interpretative thoughts,

that which is as yet unpatterned turns very hard and solid.

18.

mind immaculate in its very being, can never be

polluted by samsara's or nirvana's impurities.

a precious jewel deep in mud

will not shine, though it has luster.

19.

knowledge shines not in the dark, but when the darkness

is illumined, suffering disappears (at once).

shoots grow from the seed

and leaves from the shoots.

20.

he who thinks of the mind in terms of one

or many, casts away the light and enters the world.

into a (raging) fire he walks with open eyes --

who could be more deserving of compassion?

21.

for the delights of kissing the deluded crave

declaring it to be the ultimately real --

like a man who leaves his house and standing at the

door asks (a woman) for reports of sensual delights.

22.

the stirring of biotic forces in the house of

nothingness has given artificial rise to

pleasures in so many ways.

such yogis from affliction faint for they have

fallen from celestial space, inveigled into vice.

23.

as a brahmin, who with rice and butter

makes a burnt offering in blazing fire

creating a vessel for nectar from celestial space,

takes this through wishful thinking as the ultimate.

24.

some people who have kindled the inner heat and

raised it to the fontanelle

stroke the uvula, with the tongue in a sort of

coition and confuse that which fetters

with what gives release,

in pride will call themselves yogis.

25.

as higher awareness, they teach what they experience within.

what fetters them they will call liberation.

a glass trinket coloured green, to them is a (priceless) emerald,

deluded, they know not a gem

from what they think it should be.

26.

they take copper to be gold. bound by discursive thought

they think these thoughts to be the ultimate reality.

they long for the pleasures experienced in dreams.

they call the perishable body-mind eternal bliss supreme.

27.

by the symbol evam (they think) self-clearness is achieved,

by the different situations that demand four seals

they call what they have fancied spontaneity,

but this is looking at reflections in a mirror.

28.

as under delusion's power a herd of deer will rush

for the water in a mirage which is not recognised,

so also the deluded quench not their thirst, are bound by chains

and find pleasure in them, saying that all is ultimately real.

29. nonmemory is convention's truth

and mind which has become no-mind (is ultimate truth).

this is fulfillment, this is the highest good.

friends, of this highest good, become aware.

30.

in nonmemory is mind absorbed;

just this is emotionality perfect and pure.

it is unpolluted by the good or bad of worldliness

like a lotus unaffected by the mud from which it grows.

31.

yet with certainty must all things be viewed as if they were a magic spell.....

if without distinction you can accept or reject samsara or nirvana,

steadfast is your mind, free from the shroud of darkness.

in you will be self-being, beyond thought and self-originated.

32.

this world of appearance has from its radiant beginning never come to be;

unpatterned, it has discarded patterning.

as such it is continuous and unique meditation;

it is nonmentation, stainless contemplation, and no-mind.

33.

mind, intellect, and the formed contents of that mind are it,

so too are the world and all that seems from it to differ,

all things that can be sensed, and the perceiver,

also dullness, aversion, desire, and enlightenment.

34.

like a lamp that shines in the darkness of spiritual unknowing,

it removes obscurations of a mind

as far as the fragmentations of intellect obtain.

who can imagine the self-being of desirelessness?

35.

there's nothing to be negated, nothing to be affirmed or grasped;

for it can never be conceived.

by the fragmentations of the intellect are the deluded fettered;

undivided and pure remains spontaneity.

36.

if you question ultimacy with the postulates of the many and the one, 

oneness is not given,

for by (transcending) knowledge are sentient beings freed.

the radiant is potency latent in the intellect, 

and this is shown to be meditation;

unswerving mind is our true essence.

37. once in the realm that's full of joy

the seeing mind becomes enriched

and thereby for this and that most useful;

even when it runs after objects it is not alienated from itself.

38.

the buds of joy and pleasure

and the leaves of glory grow.

if nothing flows out anywhere

the bliss unspeakable will fruit.

39.

what has been done and where and what in itself it will become is nothing:

yet thereby it has been useful for this and that.

whether passionate or not

the pattern is nothingness.

40.

if i am like a pig that covets worldly mire

you must tell me what fault lies in a stainless mind.

by what does not affect one

how can one now be fettered?