Verse 23: Attractive things: summer rainbows
Verse 23 of Gyalse Tokme Zangpo’s 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, from the section “Ultimate bodhicitta.” Below: the verse in three translations and what seven teachers say about it.
Open in the study browser →When you come across things that attract you—like beautiful rainbows in summertime—do not regard them as real and abandon clinging attachment. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to let go of grasping When encountering things one finds pleasant or attractive, Considering them to be like rainbows in the summer skies— Beautiful in appearance, yet in truth devoid of any substance.
When you come across something you enjoy, Though beautiful to experience, like a summer rainbow, Don't take it as real. Let go of attachment — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
(Brief.) The good-looking bodies of the young turn ugly with age though the person is the same; foods judged delicious or foul "all turn out to be the same" after eating — judgments of the senses are untrustworthy. Strong attachment to pleasant feelings means equally strong loss when they vanish.
The realization's purpose: not to reject appearances but to stop ignorance's exaggeration of objects, which breeds attachment and hatred — "attachment is always backed by ignorance." Cites Aryadeva; distinguishes the old antidote (seeing the object as impure — temporary suppression) from the new (seeing it as unreal — eradication), and advises practicing both.
Nothing establishes beauty from the object's own side — like a rainbow, gorgeous at a distance, nothing findable up close. Precision: things are like an illusion, not literally illusions — "it's not saying that everything is an illusion" — a distinction with karmic teeth (killing an illusory horse ≠ killing a real one). Even after realizing voidness, automatic attachment persists; repeat the meditation.
All five sense objects are appearance-emptiness inseparable; understood as empty they "can be enjoyed without attachment, without suffering" — experience becomes relaxed, spacious, affliction-free. Quote: "All forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile objects have no self-nature."
Mastery of mind, not avoidance of the world: one who has mastered mind wanders undistracted in a crowd; one who hasn't churns thoughts "like ripples on water" even in retreat. Quote: "It is not what you perceive that binds you, and it is your clinging to it that binds you. Cut through your clinging, Naropa!" (Tilopa).
Winter Retreat vv22–24 talk.
Talk 9: grasping pleasant experience is like trying to hold a rainbow — open appreciation instead. Tricycle v23: are you able to open up to not-holding?
the shared surprise — this verse permits enjoyment. KTGR, KS, and KM all land on appreciation-without-grasping rather than avoidance; AB adds the technical guardrail (like-an-illusion, not illusion); HHDL explains why this antidote outclasses the old asceticism. The deep answer to verse 21's provisional one. ---
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche — The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.