Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

positive results and, disheartened, had gone away. The
poem was requested as some good advice for him. After
it had been printed in Hong Kong, many people read it,
including my friend. He appreciated its whole message,
though here we have space only for a few lines.
Mr. Chen then translated his poem, giving between
the lines his own commentary, here placed in
parentheses.
"Tantric Vinaya is like keeping precepts in the
breaking of them."
(In Hinayana, the precepts are used as an escape from
non-virtue; one "hides away" in sunyata in the
Mahayana; but in the Vajrayana, one tries to keep the
precepts while breaking them. This is very difficult, and
can be done only after keeping the precepts pure in the
other two yanas.)
"Tantric samatha is like getting life from death."
(The deeper one enters ordinary samatha, the more like
death the state of the yogi becomes. But in Vajrayana,
samatha is like the most vivid life, for one obtains some
functional salvation from this highest samatha. In the
concluding sections of the chapters on the yanas of
cause, I have given a guide for the yogi's practice.
However, I do not give one for the highest Tantra
because here, one is always meditating—at every time,
502