Hero Releasing from Fright

Wishes for Release from the Perilous Straits of the
Intermediate State, Hero Releasing from Fright

By the First Panchen Lama,
Losang Chokyi Gyeltsen

1.
I and all beings throughout space and without exception
Go for refuge until the ultimate of enlightenments
To the past, present, and future Buddhas, the Doctrine,
and the Spiritual Community.
May we be released from the frights of this life,
the intermediate state, and the next.

2.
May we extract the meaningful essence of this life
support
Without being distracted by the senseless affairs in this
life,
Since this good foundation, hard to gain and easy to
disintegrate.
Presents an opportunity 1 choice between profit and
loss, comfort and misery.

3.
May we realize that there is no time to waste,
Death being definite but the time of death indefinite.
What has gathered will separate, what has been
accumulated will be consumed without residue,
At the end of a rising comes descent, the finality of
birth is death.


May we be relieved from overwhelming suffering due to
the various causes of death
When in this city of erroneous conceptions of
subject and object
The illusory body composed of the four impure elements
And consciousness are about to separate.

5.
May we be relieved from mistaken appearances of non-virtue
When, deceived at the time of need by this body
sustained so dearly,
The frightful enemies – the lords of death-manifest
And we kill ourselves with the weapons of the three
poisons of lust, hatred, and bewilderment.

6.
May we remember instructions for practice
When doctors forsake us and rites are of no avail,
Friends have given up hope for our life,
And we are left with nothing else to do.

7.
May we have the confidence of joy and delight
When food and wealth accumulated with miserliness
are left behind
And we separate forever from cherished and longed-for
friends,
Going alone to a perilous situation.

8.
May we generate a powerful mind of virtue
When the elements – earth, water, fire, and wind
dissolve in stages
And physical strength is lost, mouth and nose dry
and pucker,
Warmth withdraws, breaths are gasped, and
rattling sounds emerge.

9.
May we realize the deathless mode of being
When various mistaken appearances frightful
and horrible
And in particular mirage, smoke, and fireflies appear
And the mounts of the eighty indicative
conceptions cease.

10.
May we generate strong mindfulness and introspection
When the wind constituent begins to dissolve into
consciousness
And the external continuum of breath ceases, coarse
dualistic appearances dissolve,
And an appearance like a burning butter lamp dawns.

11.
May we know our own nature ourselves
Through the yoga realizing cyclic existence
and nirvana as empty
When appearance, increase, and near-attainment
Dissolve – the earlier into the later –
And experiences like pervasive moonlight, sunlight,
and darkness dawn.

12.
May the mother and child clear lights meet
When near-attainment dissolves into the all-empty
And all conceptual multiplications cease and an
experience
Like an autumn sky free from polluting conditions dawns.

13.
May we be set in one-pointed profound meditation
In the exalted wisdom of joined innate bliss
and emptiness
During the four empties upon the melting of the moon-like
white constituent
By the fire of the lightning-like Powerful Female.

14.
May we complete in place of the intermediate state
The concentrated meditation of illusion so that upon
leaving the clear light
We rise in a Body of Complete Enjoyment blazing with
the glory of a Buddha’s marks and beauties
Arisen from the mere wind and mind of the clear light
of death.

15.
If, due to karma, an intermediate state is established,
May erroneous appearances be purified
Through immediately analyzing and realizing the
absence of inherent existence
Of the sufferings of birth, death, and intermediate state.

16.
May we be born in a pure land
Through yoga transforming the external, internal,
and secret
When various signs – four sounds of the reversal of
the elements,
Three frightful appearances, and uncertainties appear.

17.
May we be reborn with the supreme life support of a
Tantra practitioner using the sky
Or the body of a monastic or lay practitioner possessing
the three practices
And may we complete the realizations of the paths of the
two stages of generation and completion,
Thereby attaining quickly a Buddha’s Bodies – Truth,
Complete Enjoyment, and Emanation.