If it weren’t for the adored bridegroom
Of appearance as mere dependent origination,
The loving bride of emptiness
Would be no better than dead.

Emptiness is the most lovely bride,
A ravishing beauty beyond compare.
If he ever became separated from her,
That handsome bridegroom would be fettered in shackles.

Therefore, trembling with anxiety,
Bride and bridegroom turn to the guru,
Whose inborn kindness for them
Places their love right back to its original, innate state.

Ah, the genuine guru’s sagacity
And great skill are so wonderful
That those two become originally indivisible,
Nonreferential, and unsurpassable.

This couple is endowed with the abundance of all characteristics
And is free from the two extremes.
It is the nature of all that is, yet lacks a nature of its own —
Thus it always flourishes.

Maitripa

quoted in the book Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions

translated by Karl Brunnholzl


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