The Great Secret of Mind

this, he promised to enslave Surya Vajra by inducing a state of enchantment, and
he laughed uproariously. The great siddha Luhipa happened to witness this
conference of the devils and reported it to Surya Vajra, who was grateful, saying
that to be forewarned was to be forearmed. Luhipa left him with the warning that
his weakness lay in his openness to the temptations of pleasure.
Then with Surya Vajra diligently continuing his meditation night and day, the
devil of happiness began his agenda by bewitching the townspeople, in particular
its beautiful women. One night in a dream they entered Surya Vajra’s mandala,
and this particular devil came forward in the guise of his personal deity. The
demon assured the yogin that he had now gained supreme siddhi and that
tomorrow he would possess all the common siddhis. Finally, the devil told him
that henceforth he was free of the kind of obstacles raised by devils and that he
need not meditate so much, as he had now attained all real knowledge. Instantly
Surya Vajra was transported to bliss.
Next day some people came and made an offering of fine food and wealth,
which confirmed in his mind what his personal deity had told him in the dream. A
few days later a beautiful woman approached him with rice for him to eat and
white cloth for him to wear and supplicated him for secret instruction. Surya Vajra
was doubtful that women were included in the rewards of accomplishment that
his dream indicated. But he accepted her as his consort anyway, sure that he
would be free of both attachment to her and sexual pleasure. But over time his
relationship with her became so deep that he could not bear to be apart from her
love and care. He could not leave her alone. She visited him often, but despite this
people still came regularly to pay him respect and make offerings.
One day it occurred to him that perhaps he should abandon his meditation and
become a householder, but he was undecided. So he approached Guru Luhipa and
shared with him his intentions. Luhipa immediately told him that he certainly had
been possessed by devils: the transformation of his conduct already clearly
indicated this. The guru advised him strongly that he would be saved if he
dissolved his attachment to the woman, but if he failed to do this, he would fall
back into samsara and remain trapped there. Surya Vajra believed what Luhipa
had told him, but realizing that he could not break his attachment to the woman,
he ignored the guru’s advice and committed himself to the life of a householder.
All his disciples and admirers then abandoned him, chiding him for his loss of
commitment, and when his decision was reported at court, the king ordered him
to be cast out. Surya Vajra had now lost all his religious beatitude and became the
poorest among the poor of that town.
At the beginning the yogin was deceived by his dream experience and became
entangled in attachments. In the middle he did not realize that his woman was a
gross delusion, and at the end, diverted from Dzogchen praxis by real attachment,
he fell into endless samsara. So whatever thoughts appear in real time or in dream
must be released loosely into pure presence. If we are tempted and trapped in
those ideas, we will be inveigled into the mystical experiences of bliss, clarity, and
no-thought and find no release from the three realms of samsara. If we can sustain
this—the release upon the arising of mystical envisionment—there is no need to