Testament of Kadalipa, Translation

Testament of Kelapa

Thus do I seem to recall, that at one time, long ago in Central India, there was a Brahmin boy named Devadas. He became madly infatuated with a Shudra girl, so his parents punished him by throwing him out of the house. After begging for a while on the streets of the streets of Shravasti, he entered the employ of a prostitute. Having faith that she was a timeless awareness emanation of Arya Tara, he received empowerments and pith instructions, and gained the power of the mantras of Tara and Varahi. Later he became a merchant selling fruits such as mangos and bananas in the market, and was known as "Mr. Banana" (Kadalipa) or Kelapa for short. Guessing I must be the contemporary rebirth of that person, and considering the situation of religion in my present homeland, due to Kelapa's previous habit and because of awakening previous karma due to practice here and now, this is what I think:

[Introduction]

Namo Ajitavijaye!

Quintessence of all Victorious Ones, Vidyamantradhara,
With the prajna-brilliance of Jinaputra Paramadana,
Supreme fearless yogic activity taming the hard to tame,
To the lord of Vidyadharas, Ajitanatha,
I pay homage in body, speech and mind.

I am a heart-son of Kadalipa.
In the heartless (coreless) center of a plantain tree,
One has good fortune to discover a sweet heart of honey.
Similarly, in a weak-hearted person of bad habits like myself
The form of a heartless corpse walks, [yet] contains heart-essence.

As a playful display of affection, I compose this song, which is hard to hear.
If it is discouraging for others who have problems,
Let them store it in a remote Alaya-cave,
And later, it should become clear.
Since I have faults just like those discussed here,
There is no end to the karma of regurgitation,
And having to re-eat my own vomit.

[Part I]

Nowadays, most Tibetan lamas
Have snuck the old ways of Brahmins inside of red robes.
They discriminate the ranks of various peoples and races,
Assigning them to high and low grades.
They patch religion over with the artifice
Of sectarian bigotry.
They create conflicts among the words and meaning
Of various cultural conventions.
Their view is found in the variety of staged dramas they perform.
Gathering retinues of disciples, they sound off
With the high-faluting voice of empowerment rituals.
Inviting disciples' devotion, they take Triple Gem wealth in their hands.
After getting their disciples' money,
They loudly broadcast aspiration prayers into space.
Consider whether they have "become pure lineage holders".
Those of the same race closely connected,
They gradually install in hierarchies.
Those of other races they keep at a distance,
Confined in humble-pie prisons.
They make prayers to increase the great fortune of the doctrine and beings.
[But], to the stages of the path [applied to] beings' abilities,
They blind themselves.
Though Tathagatagarbha is not fundamentally obscured,
Like the Brahmanical tradition, they discriminate
Amongst races and clothing-fashions.
Alas! The Buddha-dharma with its countless paths
Functions to accomplish benefit of countless beings.
Sugatagarbha's qualities pervade all beings.
The trailhead of the ultimate path to happiness is not far off.
Dharma talk of "drip" and "drops", of ghouls and apparitions,
Is pointless, isn't it?
"Deep, deep samadhi" is just a reference point, no?
Lamas that have reached a pure stage of quality
Do not compartmentalize people and Dharma,
Do not see qualities and beings as so different,
Like the earth and sky.
The have no reference point for their own versus others' benefit.

This is the first chapter, "Excoriating the faults of myself and others".


[Part II]

Even someone like me, learned in the five sciences,
Goes running after whatever trivial things he sees,
And is reborn in the triple world,
Subsumed by the six proliferating āyatanas --
Woe! This little hollow of deluded mind is strange!

The eighty-four thousand Dharmas that dispel delusion
Are taught for the sake of innate luminosity,
Not to inspire respect in other people.
Endless words and meanings are spoken to benefit beings,
But why heap endless commentary on each of those?
Herding the livestock of erroneous assumptions
Into the corral of the four reliances of provisional and definitive meaning
Like a rancher, to transform bad ideas into good ones,
One is misled.
As might a wealthy Brahmin surrounded by cattle,
If those [ideas] are not liberated in the non-conceptual Dharmadhatu,
One dies of spiritual starvation.

My, my! Charlatans who sell the wealth of the supreme vehicle,
If their underbellies do not predigest the teachings they proclaim,
As much as they expound, they are consumed by elemental spirits and ghosts.
They are tormented by the cancer of conduct based on disparate, distracting viewpoints.
They are intoxicated by the intellect's home-brew
Of personally formulated advice.
They indulge the perversions of a know-it-all's pilfered knowledge.
Texts that disclose the sense of non-elaborated [emptiness]
They make into bones of angry contention.
The sense of non-elaboration is made
Into an elaborate point of obsession.
So, like tadpoles writhing on dusty ground,
They are misguided on crooked paths,
And lacking water of Dharma, die of thirst.

How sad! Oddballs addicted to words and meanings,
How will they every understand the meaningful words
Of humble, easygoing people?
How will they be able to drink the advice nectar
Of the great awareness-holders?
Though the manner of the unambitious, clueless and tongue-tied
Be subject to derision,
Aside from that, how else would one maintain
The manner of nonconceptuality transcending intellect?
So may those who make a living by
Accumulating intellectual fabrications,
Have the good fortune of becoming a clueless, methodless savant,
And be reborn as the faithful [student] of a person
Of unequalled kindness, like my own guru-protector!

[Part III: dissolved into sor-rtog ye-shes a long time ago.]