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 Fundamental Mind: The Nyingma View of the Great Completeness Book Excerpt

by Mi-pam-gya-tso, with commentary by Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins

The combination of topic, well-known authors, and accessible presentation of the material makes this an important book for practitioners. Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay provides an illuminating, expansive, and practical commentary on Mi-pam-gya-tso's incisive work on the Great Completeness view of ultimate reality, called Three Cycles on Fundamental Mind.

Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay begins with a biography of Mi-pam-gya-tso, after which he explains the aim of the book—the differentiation of mistaken mind and fundamental mind. The main theme is primordial enlightenment in the basal clear light, self-arisen pristine wisdom. Then, in four chapters Mi-pam-gya-tso:

  • presents this basic mind, or vajra matrix, drawing on myriad explanations in Tantras
  • details how fundamental mind is an uncompounded union of luminosity and emptiness
  • refutes Ja-wa Do-ngak's presentation of the Great Completeness as a compounded mind
  • and draws distinctions about the nature and appearance of fundamental mind prior to and after realization.

The emphasis is on being introduced to and identifying fundamental mind in naked experience through a lama's quintessential instructions.


Mi-pam-gya-tso (1846-1912) was a great Nying-ma scholar-yogi and one of the leaders of the Ri-me (nonsectarian) movement in eastern Tibet.

Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay is one of the few remaining Nyingma lamas trained in Tibet and capable of transmitting in complete form the special precepts of the Nyingma order. A lay priest and renowned yogi-scholar, he was trained in all four lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He is among the most senior lamas and Great Completeness masters in the Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and the most eminent Nyingma historian alive today. He lives in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Jeffrey Hopkins is a seminal and influential scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. Professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, he is the author and translator of numerous books on Tibetan Buddhism. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The following excerpt is from the forthcoming book Fundamental Mind: The Nyingma View of the Great Completeness.

The Basal Clear Light
...this original (ye thog) basal clear light, the primordial (gdod ma) mode of subsistence, is the final reality of all phenomena. All appearances of cyclic existence and nirvana shine forth from within it, and when they shine forth, there is not a single phenomenon that is other than continuously abiding in it.

Ye has the sense of original, and thog ma means first, so the reference here is to the original basal clear light. The basis, here in the system of the Great Completeness, is not just a non-existence, or a mere negative, but is the clear light that is the primordial subsistence of things. It is the final reality of all phenomena.

From within the basal clear light, all appearances of cyclic existence and nirvana shine forth. And when they shine forth from within the mind of clear light, they do not become separate from it but are like the effulgence of that mind of clear light. Thus there is no phenomenon other than ones that remain abiding within that mind of clear light when it shines forth.

Since this is the final place of release, it is called "the Truth Body that is the ultimate mode of subsistence."

When finally the adventitious obstructions as well as their predispositions are purified, it is called "the Nature Body endowed with two purities," the final true cessation in the supreme vehicle.

Because this basal mind of clear light is the final place of release, it is what is called "the Truth Body that is the ultimate mode of subsistence." The Truth Body is complete within this basal mind of clear light. Thus, what defiles it and prevents its manifestation? An example of this situation is the sun and the clouds: the sun is the basal mind of clear light, and the clouds are our own adventitious and temporary predispositions blocking realization, or manifestation, of the sun. When we are unable to see the sun, we think that only clouds exist; just so, due to our predispositions we think that those things that come forth from these predispositions are all that there is.

When these adventitious predispositions and obstructions finally become purified, this basal mind of clear light itself is called "the Nature Body endowed with the two purities." This is not just the natural purity of being intrinsically free from defilements but also is the purity of being free from adventitious defilements. It is the final true cessation taught in the supreme vehicle. The supreme vehicle is the Vajra Vehicle and, within that, the Great Completeness.

In that foundation, mistakenness and release are non-dual. Just that foundation is the essential purity from the viewpoint of being without any [conceptual and dualistic] proliferations and is spontaneity in that it is not a mere emptiness like space but is self-luminous without partiality, not limited in its vastness, and not fallen into limitation.

Since it is the source of all appearances of cyclic existence and nirvana, it is called all-pervasive compassion.

Within that basis, that is to say, within that basal Truth Body, since it is primordially buddhafied, there is no such thing as error, and there is no such thing as release. Within that basis, error and release are non-dual, and thus it is the great natural equality.

Just that basis—the basal Truth Body of the mind of clear light—is the essential purity from the viewpoint of its being totally without any dualistic and conceptual proliferation. It is not just a mere emptiness like space or like an empty house, but has a self-arisen spontaneous nature of self-illumination. It is not partial, not limited anywhere in its extent—not ruptured due to being too vast—not fallen to any extreme.

Being the source of all appearances of cyclic existence and nirvana, it is the place from which they arise. Because it pervades everything right through Buddhahood, it is called all-pervasive compassion.

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More about the authors . . .

Visit the web pages of the authors:

Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay   and   Jeffrey Hopkins

Books by Khetsun Sangpo Rinbochay

Books by Jeffrey Hopkins: