Laugh Out Loud

"The best guru is one who attacks your hidden faults
The best instructions are the ones that target those faults.

In the company of others, guard your speech;
Whenever you are alone, guard your mind.

Those who long to put a complete end
To all the sufferings of others
Through the sufferings of their own experience—
Individuals such as these are supreme.

Trying to reach the great mansion
Of the authentic nature of reality
Without the steps of the authentic relative
Is not an approach the wise should take.

The path followed and taught by the Buddha in order to guide the world
Is within the reach of human beings with strength of heart,
But cannot be attained by the gods, nagas,
Asuras, garudas, vidyadharas, kinnaras or uragas.

Love is the seed of this abundant harvest of buddhahood.
It is like the water which causes growth and expansion,
And it ripens into the state of lasting enjoyment,
Therefore at the outset I shall praise compassion!

Firstly with the thought of “I”, they cling to self,
And then with “mine”, they grow attached to things,
Helplessly, they wander like a turning waterwheel—
To compassion for these beings, I bow down!

Those who, when hearing about emptiness,
Are inspired with great joy again and again,
So that their eyes moisten with tears,
And the hairs on their body stand on end,
Possess the potential for complete awakening.
They are the proper vessels for these teachings,
To them one should teach the ultimate truth.

All things may be seen correctly or incorrectly;
And so it is that they possess a dual identity.
The ultimate is what is seen correctly,
The wrongly seen is superficial truth, it’s said.

Cognitions that derive from impaired faculties,
Are false compared with healthy sense cognitions.
All that’s apprehended by the six undamaged senses,
Is taken to be true, according to the world.
The rest, according to the world, is false.

The nature of things is obscured by delusion, so it is “all-concealed.”
But this fabrication appears to us as true,
And so the Buddha spoke of it as superficial truth.
Entities that are thus contrived are “relatively” true.

Since they lack true existence on both levels of reality,
These phenomena are neither non-existent nor everlasting.

Conventional truth is the method;
And the ultimate is its outcome.
Not knowing how the two truths differ,
Your thoughts will go astray.

The analyses in this treatise are not given
Out of an excessive fondness for debate.
It is not our fault if, in the course of this teaching,
Other philosophical systems come to be destroyed.

It is not because they run out of sky that birds turn back,
It is because they lack the strength to keep on flying.
Just so, the śrāvaka disciples and the bodhisattvas,
Can not express Buddha’s qualities, as infinite as space.

The nature of mind is clear light,
Defilements are only adventitious.

When there is an “I”, there is a perception of other,
And from the ideas of self and other come attachment and aversion,
As a result of getting wrapped up in these,
All possible faults come into being.

He eats his father’s flesh while striking his own mother,
And cradles in his lap the enemy he killed,
The wife is gnawing at her husband’s bones.
Saṃsāra is enough to make you laugh out loud!"

~ Atīśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna (982 - 1054 CE) was a Buddhist Bengali religious leader and master. He was one of the major figures in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra. In 1013 CE, He traveled to the Srivijaya kingdom and stayed there for 12 years and came back to India. He is recognised as one of the greatest figures of classical Buddhism, and Atisa's chief disciple Dromtön was the founder of the Kadam School. Atisa is also considered to be a key figure in the establishment of the Sarma schools of Tibetan Buddhism.