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Machik’s Complete Explanation
“The signs of wind dissolving into space are a darkening of some areas and black splotches on the external body and tongue, the body warmth all condensing into one round area, the breath vapors sort of wafting up, and a slight rasping audible in the windpipe. The inner signs are a bright radiance like the light in a cloudless sky. Within that, white lights like shooting stars arise and swirl all around like a snow blizzard. Thinking that a great wind is pushing you, you try to gasp and make sounds of hang hang, with a long gasping breath of har har. At that point all the great fears come.4 “When the eye organs fail, light feels like the points of weapons. It is as if you are whipped by tongues of flame and tail-hair whisks. There seems to be a stirring of great clouds. It is as if there were grates and fishnets, terrifying animals, smashing cymbals, a shimmering like the moving of mirages, all kinds and of every variety of color, and terrifying sights such as you have never before experienced. “At the same time the ear organs fail, and [at first] there are innumerable subtle bristling sounds and at the same time immediately afterward there is a sound of tuk-chom, and you think that the sky has split open. Then there is an intense resonating sound like that of a thousand thunderclaps, and you experience total terror. “Then there is no longer any sensitivity to external sensations, and the organs of the eyes, and so on are blocked (by four [experiences] like the pervasion of moonlight, of sunlight, of haziness, a total darkness, and the clear light of reality).5 As it continues for a while, you become somewhat afraid. Then the five elements dissolve internally and blend into one, becoming disrupted. The embodiment of that disruption (in someone who has very great obscuration) is the appearance of immeasurably numerous forms such as that of the wrathful Lord of Death. Distracted by this internal disruption of the five elements, you experience terrifying appearances. “Then the five elements and the white and red vital-essence drops combine internally, and [you feel] enveloped in a covering, like when a flame is snuffed out by the wind and leaves you in total darkness. That is a mere moment, and then the refuse (snyigs ma) of the elements and the refuse of the vital drops are excreted below. The pure essence of the elements and the vital drops, called ‘indestructible,’ is extremely luminous and intensely radiant and unmoving. Within that, the luminous pure essence of awareness is utterly vivid, like the freedom from all obscurations. It is shining, like the direct perception of the truth of reality. For a moment, you know yourself and attain