Vajra represents the dimension of pure presence that remains unchanging and
unchangeable in all appearances. Amitabha represents the dimension of pure
presence that is immutable in time and space and that has no center or
circumference. Vairochana represents the dimension of radiance in the utterly
immaculate all-embracing, all-suffusing spaciousness, free of conceptual
elaboration. Ratnasambhava represents the wish-fulfilling dimension of supreme
and ordinary accomplishment attained through nothing existent, yet everywhere
apparent. Amoghasiddhi represents the dimension where all-embracing buddha
activity is accomplished effortlessly and primordially. These five buddha-family
dimensions cannot be separated from the creativity of the primal awareness of
pure presence. Similarly, considering a single ritual from the oral or revealed
teaching, right from the refuge prayer to the final auspicious prayer, one pure
presence is complete. If we need to know the twenty-one unadulterated
potentialities and so forth, all the potential fulfilled, we can browse through the
texts of Longchenpa and The Intrinsic Nature of Being of Dudjom Rinpoche and so
forth.
If we wonder whether intrinsic presence and buddha-nature are mentioned in
the sutras of the Approach with Signs besides the supreme tantra, the answer is
“Yes!” In The King of Samadhi Sutra, it is said, “Buddha-nature embraces all
beings,” while the Gandavyuha Sutra says,
Although in the mundane world
Everything conceivable may burn,
The sky will not perish
Nor will intrinsic awareness.This point of great profundity, the nature of mind as pure presence, should be kept
secret from unworthy recipients, just as a mother refuses her breast to an infant
who needs medicine. The sutra Awareness of the Moment of Death provides this
story:
“O Noble sons! said the Buddha. There was once a woman with a sick child in
great pain, and she called a doctor who put solid medicine into the child’s mouth,
telling the mother not to give milk until the medicine had dissolved. To deter the
infant from her breasts, she smeared some bad-smelling ointment on them, at the
same time telling the baby boy that it was poison and he should not suckle. Then,
when the infant was thirsty, he begged for milk; but when he tried to suckle, the
bad smell deterred him, and he cried. After the medicine had dissolved, the
mother washed her breasts and offered them to the infant to drink. But thinking
that there was poison on the breasts, the child would not drink. Then she told the
infant that before, when he tried to suckle, the medicine had not dissolved and
that she was afraid that he might die if he mixed her milk with it. Now, however,
that the medicine had dissolved, he could drink. And the infant slowly suckled the
milk.
“Noble sons! In order to tame the disciples’ minds, just as the doctor gave the sick
child medicine to dissolve in its mouth, so I gave them meditation instruction only
on the egolessness of the body-mind. This mellowed the worldly view of the