The fruits: the Immortal and the Infallible

Adapted from a booklet by Prof. Matthew Kapstein - which encourages copying and free distribution

The fruits: the Immortal and the Infallible ('bras bu 'chi med chugs med)

The body is set upon the path of spiritual freedom through the practices of the 32 yogic exercises through which immortality is achieved. Because ones own mind is primordially unborn, it is established as immortal and surpremely liberated in and of itself. This bodily mass, which is nothing but the fruit of karmic ripening, is an assembly of inanimate matter, devoid of any basis for a determination of birth or death. In fact, if one has confidence, based on the realisation that the body itself has arisen as a mere mental projection, and that mind is devoid of birth and death, then the bodily form becomes fixed in the Mahāmudrā, the boundless expanse in which there is no erring due to bewildering appearances and phenomena, as the very embodiment of the divine. It is taught that through the application of even just some of these precepts, the embodiment of transcendent unity (zung ‘jug gi sku) may be attained during this lifetime, and that by merely hearing them, one may achieve Buddhahood in the Sambhogakaya-aspect of the Victorious Ones during the intermediate states.