open into transparencywith relaxed, natural graceintellect at ease in silence,limbs at rest in stillnesslike hollow bamboos.Neither breathing in nor breathing outwith the breath of habitual thinking,allow the mind to be at peacein brilliant wakefulness.This is the royal wealth of Mahamudra,no common coin of any realm.Beloved Naropa, this treasure of Buddhahoodbelongs to you and to all beings.Obsessive use of meditative disciplinesor perennial study of scripture and philosophywill never bring forth this wonderful realization,this truth which is natural to awareness,because the mind that desperately desiresto reach another realm or level of experienceinadvertently ignores the basic lightthat constitutes all experience.The one who fabricatesany division in consciousnessbetrays the friendship of Mahamudra.Cease all activity that separates,abandon even the desire to be free from desiresand allow the thinking process to rise and fallsmoothly as waves on a shoreless ocean.The one who never dwells in abstractionand whose only principle is never to divide or separateupholds the trust of Mahamudra.The one who abandons craving for authority and definition,and never becomes one-sidedin argument or understanding,alone perceives the authentic meaninghidden in the ancient scriptures.In the blissful embrace of Mahamudra,negative viewpoints and their instincts are burned without remainder, like camphor.Through the open door of Mahamudra,the deluded state of self-imprisonmentis easily left behind forever.Mahamudra is the torch of supreme libertyshining forth through all conscious beings.Those beings constituted by awarenesswho try to ignore, reject or grasp awarenessinflict sorrow and confusion upon themselveslike those who are insane.To be awakened from this madness,cultivate the gracious friendshipof a sublime sage of Mahamudra, who may appear to the world as mad.When the limited mind enters blessed companionship with limitless Mind, indescribable freedom dawns.Selfish or limited motivations create the illusory sense of imprisonmentand scatter seeds of further delusion.Even genuine religious teaching can generate narrowness of vision.Trust only the approachthat is utterly vast and profound.The noble way of Mahamudranever engages in the drama ofimprisonment and release.The sage of Mahamudra has absolutely no distractions,because no war against distractions has ever been declared.This nobility and gentleness alone,this nonviolence of thought and action ,is the traceless path of all Buddhas.To walk this all-embracing wayis the bliss of Buddhahood.Phenomena on every plane of beingare constantly arising and disappearing.Thus they are forever fresh, always new and inexhaustible.Like dreams without solid substance,they can never become rigid or binding.The universe exists in a deep, elusive waythat can never be grasped or frozen.Why feel obsessive desire or hatred for it, thereby creating illusory bonds?Renounce arbitrary, habitual views.Go forth courageously to meditatein the real mountain wilderness, the wide open Mahamudra.Transcend boundaries of kinshipby embracing all living beings as one family of consciousness.Remain without any compulsionin the landscape of natural freedom:spontaneous, generous, joyful.When you receive the crown of Mahamudra,all sense of rank or attainmentwill quietly disappear.Cut the root of the vine that chokes the tree,and its clinging tendrils wither away entirely.Sever the conventionally grasping mind, and all bondage and desperation dissolve.The illumination from an oil lamp lights the room instantly,even if it has been dark for aeons.Mind is boundless radiance.How can the slightest darkness remain in the room of daily perception?But one who clings to mental processescannot awaken to the radiance