Text 11.15 (Commentary)

[Guhyagarbha-Tantra, Text section 11.15]

The world, its contents, and the mind-stream
Are realised to be pure.
Through the two samenesses
And the two superior samenesses
The maṇḍala is the field of Samantabhadra. [15]

[Tibetan]

snod-bcud rgyu-rnams dag-rtogs-shing /
mnyam-gnyis lhag-pa'i mnyam-gnyis-kyis /
dkyil-'khor kun-tu bzang-po'i zhing / [15]

Commentary:

[Interlinear Commentary (408.2-416.2):]

The interlinear commentary (on the maṇḍala of displayed feastofferings) comprises a brief teaching on the feast-offerings of Samantabhadra, and a detailed exegesis of their nature according to the different maṇḍalas.

[i. The first has two (gsum sic!) sections, the former concerning the nature (of the feast-offering) which is to be known. (It comments on Ch. 11.15):]

These (offerings) illustrate that through the three purities and the four modes of sameness all things are primordial Buddha-hood in the field of Samantabhadra. Now, the essences of the five elements which form the system of the external world (snod) are pure in the nature of the five female consorts. The sentient beings who form its inner contents (bcud) subsumed in the five components are purified in the five male consorts; and the senseorgans and consciousness of the mind-stream (rgyud-rnams) of the respective (beings) along with their sense-objects are pure respectively in the male spiritual warriors, the female spiritual warriors, and the male and female gatekeepers. Moreover, those who abide in the great maṇḍala where the world is the nature of the celestial palace, its contents are the male and female deities, and the individual mind-stream is the five pristine cognitions, are realised to be pure (rnam-dag rtogs-shing) in the nature of primordial Buddha-hood.^[1]

Moreover, there are the two samenesses (mnyam-gnyis) in accordance with which all things of phenomenal existence, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, are ultimately the same in their uncreated disposition, and relatively the same in the manner of a magical apparition; and the two superior samenesses (lhag-pa'i mnyam-gnyis) in accordance with which the five components are buddhas and the eight aggregates of consciousness are pristine cognition.^[2]

Through (-kyis) these (axioms), the maṇḍala (dkyil-'khor) in which all things are without good and bad. or acceptance and rejection, is the field of (-'i zhing) the natural Samantabhadra (kun-tu bzang-po), the abiding nature of genuine reality as it arises and appears, pervading all saṃsāra and nirvāṇa without partiality or bias.

It says in the All-Accomplishing King (T. 828):

The centre is the unerring genuine nucleus.
The periphery envelops and entirely pervades
Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.

[The latter concerns those who should know (the nature of the feast-offerings. It comments on Ch. 11.16):]

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Footnotes and references:

[1]:

On this axiom of the "three purities" (dag-pa gsum), see above, p. 172, note 202; also H.V. Guenther, Matrix of Mystery. p. 10.

[2]:

On the axiom of the “four samenesses” (mnyam-pa bzhi). see p. 172. note 203; and H.V. Guenther. Matrix of Mystery, p. 10.