How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
One may contemplate the nature of wind,
But movement and stillness are not non-dual.
Duality cannot bring highest enlightenment.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
One may contemplate the nature of emptiness .
But its aspect is murky and dull, lacking awareness.
Whatever is unaware is different from Bodhi.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
One may contemplate the nature of consciousness;
Yet one is regarding a consciousness that is not eternal.
Even the thought of it is empty and false.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
All activities are impermanent;
So, too, mindfulness has its origin in arising and ceasing.
Since at any given time the factors propelling cause and effect differ,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
I now inform the World Honored One,
The Budha appearing in the Saha world:
In this land the true substance of teaching
Resides in hearing the sounds purely.
If one wants to attain samadhi,
Hearing is the best way to enter.
Apart from suffering, liberation is found.
How excellent is he who contemplates the world’s sounds!
Throughout eóns as numerous as Ganges’ sands.
He enters Budhalands as many as fine dust motes.
Obtaining great power of self-mastery,
He bestows fearlessness on living beings.
Wonderful is the sound of Contemplator of the World’s Sounds,
A pure sound, like the ocean’s roar.
He saves the world and brings peace to all within it.
He has transcended the world, and his attainment is eternal.
I now evaluate, Tathagata,
What the Contemplator of Sounds has just explained:
Consider someóne in a quiet place, who,
When drums are rolled throughout the ten directions,
Can hear at once the sounds from all ten locations.
That is actual true perfection.
The eyes cannot see through solid forms.
The mouth and the nose are much the same.
The body registers awareness only through contact.
The mind, tangled in thoughts, lacks clear connections.
Sounds can be heard even through solid walls.
The ears can listen to things both near and far.
None of the other five organs can match this.
It, then, is penetrating true and real.
The nature of sounds is based in motion and stillness.
One hears according to whether there is sound.
With no sound, there is said to be no hearing.
But this does not mean that the hearing-nature is gone.
In the absence of sound, the nature is not ended;
Nor does it arise in the presence of sound.
Entirely beyond arising and ceasing.
It is, then, truly eternal.
Ever-present, even in dream-thinking,
It does not disappear when conditions and thought are gone.
Enlightened, this contemplation transcends cognition,
Reaching beyond both the body and the mind.
Now, in the Saha world, the theory of sounds
Has been proclaimed and understood.
Yet beings are confused about the source of hearing.
They follow sounds and so turn and flow.
Ananda’s power to remember was exceptional;
Yet he fell prey to a deviant plot.
Was it not from heeding sounds that he was nearly lost?
By turning back the flow, one will be above falseness.
Ananda, listen attentively:
I rely upon the Budha’s awesome power,
In describing to you the Vajra King,
A samadhi inconceivable that is like an illusion.
It is the true mother of all Budhas.
You may hear the secret Dharma-doors
Of Budhas as numerous as motes of dust,
But without first renouncing desire and outflows,
You may amass learning, and still make mistakes.
You exploit learning to uphold the Budhahood of the Budhas.
Why don’t you try to hear your own hearing?
Hearing does not arise spontaneously;
It gets its name due to sounds.
But when hearing returns and is free of sound,
What does one call that which is set free?
As soon as one sense-organ returns to the source,
All the six are liberated.
Sight and hearing are like an illusory covering.
The triple realm, a vision of flowers in space.
When hearing reverts, the covering of the sense-organs is gone.
The defiling dust gives way to pure and perfect insight.
With ultimate purity, the light is penetrating.
A stillness shines and includes within it all of emptiness .
Looking at the world from this point of view,
Everything that happens is just like a dream.
Matangi’s daughter, too, is part of the dream.
Who was able, then, to physically detain you?
Consider a shadow puppeteer at work,
Making the dolls seem as real as people.
Although one sees them move about freely,
They are really governed by a set of strings.
Cease operating the controls and they become still.
The entire illusion was never really there.
The six sense-organs are also thus.
At first there was one essential brightness.
Which split into a six-fold combination.
If but one part ceases and returns,
All six functions will stop as well.
Responding to a thought, defiling objects vanish,
Becoming pure and wonderful perfect brightness .
If there is residual defilement, one must still study.
When the brightness is ultimate, one becomes a Tathagata.
Ananda, and everyone in the great assembly,
Turn around your mechanism for hearing.
Return the hearing to hear your own nature
The nature will become the supreme Way.
That is what perfect penetration really means.
That is the gateway entered by Budhas as many as dust motes.
That is the one path leading to Nirvana.
Tathagatas of the past perfected this method.
Bodhisattvas now merge with this total brightness.
People of the future who study and practice
Will also rely on this Dharma.
Through this method I, too, have been certified.
Contemplator of the World’s Sounds Bodhisattva was not the only one.
The Budha, the World Honored One,
Inquired of me which expedient,
Would save those in the final eón
Who seek to escape the mundane world,
And perfect the mind of Nirvana:
The best way is to contemplate the sounds of the world.
All the other kinds of expedients
Require the awesome spirit of the Budha.
In some cases they bring immediate transcendence,
But they are not the customary means of practice,
Spoken for those of shallow and deep roots alike.
I bow to the Tathagatas and the Tripitaka
And to those inconceivable Ones with no outflows,
Trusting they will aid those in the future,
So that no one will doubt this method.
It is an expedient easy to master; an appropriate teaching for Ananda
And for those floundering in the final age.
They should use the ear organ to cultivate
A perfect penetration surpassing all others
That is the way to the true mind.

Thereupon, Ananda and all in the great assembly experienced a clarity of body and mind upon receiving such profound instruction. They contemplated the Budha’s Bodhi and Parinirvana like someóne who, having travelled far on business, knows that he is on the road home, although he has not yet returned completely. Throughout the entire assembly, the gods, dragons, and all the eightfold division, those of the two vehicles who were not yet beyond study, as well as all the Bodhisattvas of initial resolve, as numerous as the sands in ten Ganges Rivers, found their fundamental mind and, far removed from dust and defilement, attained the purity of the Dharma eye. The Bhikshuni Nature attained Arhatship after hearing this verse, and limitless beings brought forth a matchless, unequaled resolve for anuttarasamyaksambodhi.

Subir