Translation: Page Five

“No-one can free you from death. You are just like livestock led to slaughter, fearing the inevitability of being butchered; For death is the common thread which binds all living beings to the universal fabric of existence. Manifold others have already died, and some are now in the process of dying. All this is continually obvious to behold. Perhaps if you yourself have yet to pass away, or have yet to directly perceive or witness death, you may believe that death is nothing to be feared...” (To think thus is a mistake, of course, and the following verses continue on to explain why in further detail...)

དེ་ཡང་མ་ཡིན་ཏེ་གསད་པར་བྱ་བའི་ཕྱུགས་རྣམས་འཇིགས་པ་ལས་ཐར་བ་མེད་པ་ལྟར། འཆི་ཝ་ནི་སེམས་ཅན་ཀུན་ཀྱི་ཐུན་མོང་ཡིན་ཞིང། གཞན་དུ་མ་ཞིག་ཤི་ཟིན་ཅིང་ཡང་ཁ་ཅིག་འཆི་བཞིན་པ་ཡིན་པས་འཆི་བར་སྣང་བར་འགྱུར་ན། དེ་མ་དམིགས་པའང་མ་ཡིན་རང་ཉིད་དེ་ལས་འདས་པའང་མ་ཡིན་ན་ཁྱོད་ལ་འཆི་བདག་གི་འཇིགས་པ་རྒྱུ་ཅི་ཞིག་གིས་མེད།

I'll also be offering various translations here of some of the text we're working on in my Buddhist philosophy class, which is Khenpo Shenga's commentary on Aryadeva's “400 Verses.” (Aryadeva was a disciple of Nagarjuna in 3^rd century C.E. India, and his text is considered 'Middle-Way,' or 'Madhyamaka'; Khenpo Shenga is a Tibetan Rime master from the 19^th century [Rime is a non-sectarian/non-partisan movement that began in eastern Tibet just before this time, and the center I study at is in the same tradition]).