Primordial Purity Free from Elaborations

The 2017 Chengdu edition classifies the piece as a "song of experience" (nyams mgur), whereas the older, undated edition gives it the genre classification of "counsel" (gdams pa), and it is contained in the general section of Khenpo Ngaga's works containing his "counsels." The title, which dervies from the first four syllables of the song, sets two profound terms together, and their combination can be understood in several ways. The first term is ka dag—as a noun, “primordial/original purity” or, as an adjective, “primordially/originally pure.” The second is spros bral, “freedom from conceptual elaborations” or “simplicity,” which can also be a predicate: “free from conceptual elaborations.” In the poem's first line, both are used as predicates for space. In the title's apposition, the first term is usually taken as principal, giving us “primordial purity [which is] free from elaborations.” It is completely admissible, however, to take the second term as principal giving us “primordially pure freedom from conceptual elaborations,” which would sound better shortened to “primordially pure simplicity. They might also be considered separate items in open apposition: primordially purity and freedom from conceptual elaborations. These meanings present themselves in Tibetan, though we believe the first reading is most common and the best choice for translating the title.  ↩

In this section, Khenpo Ngaga is poetically referring to his master after he has passed away. The passing is conveyed with the participles “free” (grol) and “journeyed/departed” (gshegs).  ↩

“Coalescence/unity” and “freedom from elaborations/simplicity” are terms found in many Tibetan compositions concerning “view.” They are poetic terms, but they are also technical, and here Khenpo Ngaga may have a specific technical sense in mind: In Mipham Rinpoche’s commentary to Śāntarakśita’s Madhyamakālaṃkāra, he discusses how a Middle Way meditator goes through four stages of insight into (1) emptiness, (2) coalescence [of the two truths], (3) freedom from elaborations, and (4) equality. For a study of this, see Karma Phuntsho, Mipham’s Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness (p. 150) where the phrase in question appears in the following way: “An experience of lack of elaborations which is spontaneous and free from negation, affirmation, elimination, and delineation will arise. This is the experience of coalescence as free from elaborations [emphasis added] (zung ‘jug spros bral…).”  ↩

The 2017 edition has the term kha skyengs su (“in shame”). The old edition reads kha skya. In his article “Exploring the Linguistic Influence of Tibet in Ladakh,” 137, Tsetan Namgyal glosses the unusual term kha skyang as confused/bewildered, which can also take the nominal form “confusion/bewilderment.” The phrase literally means “grey mouth” and the etymology remains a mystery.  ↩

“Souls” here in the common poetic usage, as in the idiom “it soothes the soul.” It should not be understood in the metaphysical sense. The Tibetan term here is blo, which contains elements of “intelligence, attitude, mind-frame, ratiocination,” etc. It can roughly denote the personal mind with its attitudes and feelings.  ↩

In the Tibetan for this line, 'dzin stong is amended to 'dzin stangs in the 2017 edition.  ↩