Clear Meaning: The Force of Wisdom Tantra

Blessings, this book is definitely a must have, for someone who studies the great perfection, everything written in this book is a blessing to hear, caution!Only for the well-versed well read well-informed reader, i.e. you won’t understand it otherwise, blessings

as an ancient , never ending, awakened and non existent Dzogchen practitioner I cherish and love and marvel and hold and practice this magnificent translation ...I will never finish it...It lives with me..Garab Dorje lives with me...it is a never ending torrent of rigpa awakened awareness..nothing more to do...emaho.

I do not yet own this text but ordered it today. After reading an excerpt on Chris Wilkinson’s Facebook page and contemplating the small bite he left on the trail I was inspired to write a pre-review of the book. I own several of his translations and highly recommended them for everyone. The covers are works of art worthy of framing.This is another one of Lama Chris Wilkinson and Tsering Kelsang beautiful creations. I am sad to say I do not own a copy yet but have ordered it to read later.The excerpt presented in the post is inspirational and is wonderful. It is comforting and perfect for contemplation.I was thinking about Chris’s lifetime of effort translating these sacred texts for 50 years and I realized that he has completed 38 translations and carefully and mindfully chewed on every single word to renders its perfect expression in English so little ones like me can touch the cover, frame the image on the cover and carry the book around to create an illusion that I know something.I realize I read the words and contemplate their meaning for a few minutes, then I realized that Chris spent hours or days refining the gold in every word in every page in his generosity to help me study and advance in my journey. One day I thought it strange that the word “vehicle” is used in Tibetan and represents a symbol to carry me to the destination. After a few days I sent a private message and told him that vehicle reminded me of a car I get in to go to my work or home and I did not realize the Tibetans of old had vehicles. As he explained the word in Tibetan and the intend, I realized that it is a much better representation of scriptures and Dharma practices than what is often used in English for the process. The metaphor of the “Path” and the “Journey” cause me to think of HARD work, falling off, going astray, and wandering in the wilderness. Thinking of the “Path” left me hopeless and depressed.Talking in terms of Views and Vehicles, helped me to realize that with the Right View, you get in the Proper Vehicle (Practices, Posture, Mantras, and such things) and as you travel in the protected Vehicle (Dharma) while you take Refuge in the Three Jewels, your Bodhicitta is developed, the movement in the mind reduces, and with the right season and conditions, each being can have direct realizations of Emptiness and Bliss and Wisdom that are talked about by the Enlightened Ones.The concept of the View and Vehicle helped me and inspire me to seek the highest aspiration of what is possible with my skill and simple mind.I feel blessed to know someone like Chris and to even get to carry some of his translations in my backpack. I am sad or lost, I can take one out and kiss the cover and read a page or two.Please purchase his translations and treasure the gold of his efforts. He was given sacred jewels written in ancient languages, spend years cleans and polishing them so English eyes can see and hear their beauty. Perhaps someone will be inspired to generate audio versions of these wish fulfilling gems. Thank you Chris for your gifts and friendship.

Just finished reading the "Clear Meaning" Wisdom Tantra for the first time and quite immense to see how the essence propagates all the teachings we have received. First in Tibetan, now clearly translated into English. Important treasure for all Earthlings. Keep up the good work!

This was my 37th of Wilkinson's 38 books and IMHO it's one of the very best--and the longest. While it does have the usual difficulties e.g. Buddhist/Indian mythology--such as p. 86 things that are born from moisture, 3 kinds of hungry ghosts p. 428, pp. 441-2 Naga king myth, and chapter 120 making alphabet/letters sacred/holy), as well as p. 364 Tantra are perfect, using "so" when it isn't a logical conclusion, etc. In addition, there is the common comparison (to the detriment of other Buddhist approaches) constituting an apologetic for Ati Yoga/Dzogchen--chapter 45, pp. 181-3 especially.That said, it includes interesting thoughts on the 5 meditation Buddhas (chapter 26), mandalas (chapter 29), Bardos (chapter 114, pp. 446-7, and impressive chapters 54, 56, 57, and 65, and 122. It elucidates many Tantra terms and I took tons of quotations from this book (see below):p. 6: The five poisons that are our emotional problems are very ripe within our spirits. We are immersed in our thoughts, prayers, and views but these are Dharmas of the intellect.p. 10: The upadesha instructions and the Sutras are instantaneous. The heart-essence of the Tantras is the sudden penetration of self-awareness.p. 14: I teach about the moment that we melt into the Dharmakaya.p. 18: Our vision of the force of wisdom is not differentiated in the base, which is a self-originating way of being.p. 19: The insubstantial heart-essence of us all is the base of all things.p. 20: To abide ourselves in our own way of non-contrivance is the Bodhicitta.p. 22: The Dharmakaya is a solitary circle. [Circle = independent]p.24: The circle of the non-dual Dharmakaya is solitary.pp. 39-40: When I say: 'Reality,' it is our unchanging objective. When I say: 'Dominion,' our objective is free of any complications…As for a totally pure dominion it is not built out of corrupt elements. It has no gross atoms…When I say: 'A dominion is not complicated,; it is beyond the demarcations of the four elements.p. 62: Unhesitating non-dual union is taught to be the essence of playfulness.. When we divide it, there are two sorts: the pure playfulness of reality and the playfulness of our own spirits in samsara.p. 85: Something is a heap because it brings many things together. It is because they are brought together that things are this way. A domain is a reality that we have demarcated.p. 86: Our consciousness arises through causes and conditions.p. 162: Our own awareness is the Dharmakaya.p. 166: There are no upadesha instructions for the sudden teachings.p. 205: The Dharmakaya is the non-duality of clarity and emptiness.p. 205: Light itself is taught to be the Sambhogakaya…There is Vairochana, the All Good One. He is taught to be the magnificent Sambhogakaya.p. 208: The awareness of higher vision is the Dharmakaya. [stated twice]p. 215: Our own spirits are pure, like the body ofa a crystal, so the purity of our pritine filthlessness is the Dharmakaya. [~4 Tzaddiks went to Chariot story]p. 218: Emptiness is the self-luminosity of our awareness.p. 218: Insubstantial thusness arises as clarity. Clarity and emptiness are non-dual…Self-originating clarity and emptiness are non-dual.p. 225: A view is like an eye. It clarifies everything. It is impossible for those whose lineages have no view to attain Buddhahood. It is impossible to awaken from the darkness of the ignorance in having no view.p. 227: By understanding our own essence we purify our problems.p. 231: When we understand that the meaning of our view is a direct perception of self-awareness and introduction will be made and we will know our own faces.p. 231: The five poisons that are our emotional problems.pp. 231-2: Our inner awareness is the Dharmakaya…We are our awareness.p. 233: If objects did not appear knowledge would not be born. [conceptualizations are metaphors]p. 238: Self-awareness is self-luminous.p. 240: Our own awareness is the Dharmakaya.pp. 245-6: Our inner awareness is the Dharmakaya. Outer appearances are the dominion of the Dharma. In between them there is the unceasing force of our awareness. There are three. Our inner awareness is the Dharmakaya. Our awareness is a non-duality of clarity and emptiness. Moreover, our own awareness is uncontrived and translucent, is not established to be an essence of any kind. This is the empty aspect of reality.pp. 246-7: The flickering of the force of our awareness is based upon our five doors [senses], and in whatever objects may arise. Our knowledge dawns…Regarding the unceasing force that is in-between,…This is the thing that flickers through external objects.p. 249: Our essence is called: 'The awareness of the Dharmakaya,' Or: 'Self-originating wisdom.'p. 250: Buddhahood is an attribution.p. 253: Our self-awareness is called the Dharmakaya, but this is a mere designation.p. 263: I teach meditation to those that have weak intellects.p. 278: We do not conceptualize the bliss, emptiness, or clarity of our awareness, so we cut through the grounds for deviation in depending on a body that has nerves, winds, and circles.p. 287: When we are immersed in taking our practice into our experience our ideas will shrink.p. 289: Our self-awareness as the Dharmakaya throughout the three times, is like the sun that is not separate from its shining. Our self-awareness does not separate from its clarity. [self-luminosity]p. 295: The Dharmakaya is a majestic self-luminescence.p. 295: When we come to have resolve in our views we also defeat the demons in our meditation practice, and experience.p. 297: Something that we hold onto intentionally is what all demons are.p. 297: The view that marks and signs are holy is itself a demon from our speech and thinking minds.p. 308: Our reward is the self-originating Dharmakaya.p. 311: Our reward is the actualization of our view.p. 313: The definition of a vehicle is that we ride it and it moves. If we divide it then there are many, but in brief there are only two: the vehicle of characteristics, on which we carry causes and conditions as the path, and the vehicle of the secret many, on which we carry our rewards on our path. These are the two. [bottom-up vs. top-down or present from past or present drawn from future per Immanuel Kant]p. 341: This is the spirit of all the Dharmas [Ati]…It is described being a Great Spirit…This is itself Buddhahood.p. 370: This wisdom that is self-awareness does not leave behind its own essence, so we lie within an experience that does not move, and this is our dhyana meditation.pp. 424-5: The origin of all virtue is the ball of jewels [Dharmakaya]. That things appear but have no true nature is the ball of light. [Sambhogakaya]…The directed force of our ideas is the ball of habitual patterns.p. 436: That which is called 'the bardo of existence' is a vision of the reality of clear light, but those who have not given birth to an understanding knowledge have been de-prioritizing wisdom since long ago.p. 439: Both Mind and wisdom are the same and they are different, so it is said: 'we are not liberated by liberation.'p. 441: Great wisdom moves through everything. This is described as the path of wisdom. [Jnana Yoga]p. 446: There is the clear light of self-luminescent wisdom. It is like the clarity of the rainbow of colors in the sky.p. 469: Sentient beings are born because of karma.p. 472: A single seed will develop into individual stalks.p. 476: The definition of 'liberation' is that we brilliantly leave behind the Dharmas of the hunt, and that we are not ensnared by the three kinds of delusions, so the definition is associated with the validation.p. 484: We are like stupas . We are present without regard to good and evil of great and small, wide and narrow. We are even-tempered about everything.p. 489: The essence of nirvana is a great wisdom that is not still. Its definition is that it is a transcendence of the limitation of sorrow, and a presence within a majestic non-conceptual bliss.pp. 494-5: Self-originating wisdom is itself our circle. Our circle itself also shines as a self-originating wisdom. Our liberation from the one and the many is the Dharmakaya and is the sky…Our circle is our unceasing awareness. When we abide in emptiness without any objective we are not liberated.p. 503: As for the Great Spirit, it is described to be an indivisible awareness of all things. Its true nature is that it does not depend on any other.p. 503: All that flickers is the force. A flickering that is not in a ball is a non-conceptual force.. When it is in a ball there will be ideas.p. 504: Clear is awareness…Clear is the Dharmakaya. These are also described as being the base and the force. These are described as being unchanging reality, our own characteristics, and our dominion.p. 505: As for the base…as reality, the Dharmakaya, and wisdom. The force is beyond light and beyond samsara…As for thusness, it is the base.p. 507: As for a wheel, it is something that cuts through. It may appear to be anything.p. 508: As for Vajrasattva, he is emptiness.p. 510: As for ignorance, it is delusion. [one of the three poisons]p. 511: The objective of controlling others within our domain is like a fortress. We will succeed after we have given up this position.p. 519: What appears is the dominion of the Dharma.

The most mesmerizing book I've ever read so far. Hypnotic, really: When I immersed myself into it and finished reading, I looked around me and asked "where am I?".