Vajra Verses - Part 11

OK, this is the last third of the third statement, so we could now translate the whole third section. First, dag pa'i snang ba'o.

dag pa means pure. the ending 'i is a genitive particle that binds the right side with this one on the left. We've had snang ba before, here it could be interpreted as a verb in this terse verse notation, thus it means to appear, or appearance occurs. The lonely 'o indicates that the section ends here. Tibetan has no real period separator, rather sentences, and when a section ends, this is the way to indicate it.

Thus the third statement is pure appearance occurs. So this is the appearance section.

Thus: For a Sugata with the ornamental wheel of inexhaustible enlightened body, speech and mind, pure appearance occurs.

For an enlightened being, there's no special Samsara or Nirvana, same with being a Buddha and not being a Buddha, it's rather experiencing reality as it really is, just pure primordial awareness.

So, sentient beings have an impure appearance, yogis due to practices have experiential appearance, and Buddhas have pure appearance. So there are no external places and events, it's all how beings experience reality. This is the Sakya term snang ba gsum, Three Appearances, or Triple Visions, depending how it's translated. Then the lam 'bras teachings initially describe the impure visions, and the second, tantric and yogic level, describes how to get the visions of experience, one at a time, up to full enlightenment.

We will next go through the little bit cryptical, Sakya-focused, presentation why Samsara and Nirvana are the same!