In the Charnel Ground
by Alta Brown

On the way
to the charnel ground,
my heart beat hard
at my throat.

But it was clean
there
and spare.
Small stone piles
marked the ashes.
The afternoon sun was very bright,
and the air was empty.

When I called the beings without bodies,
I was ready
for any terrifying thing:
anything dark and fanged,
anything contorted and ugly,
anything with long, sharp claws
and bulging eyes.
I was ready to hold my seat
if anything settled down around me.

But, instead,
in the shade where I sat singing,
the sun rose behind my eyes,
and I was shyly, gently
welcomed
into joy
and the unseen sight,
the shine, of beings made of light.

Is this the real secret,
Rinpoche,
that
at the edge of death,
night falls off into
light?

Khenpo Tsultrim's Reply
by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

All visualizations are imagination.
All imagination is appearance/emptiness.
Without being attached to appearance/emptiness as real,
rest without fixation, without focus.

Death and no death, these are also imagined.
In the expanse of equality, there's neither death nor no death.
The same with dark and light and gods and demons.
The expanse of equality is all there is.
I have never seen a single thing that's real.
Ah....
Ah....