PART ONE: Review of Verses 1-26
V1-3. Wisdom is knowing the Three Natures: parikalpita (imagined), paratantra (other-dependent) and pariniṣpanna (‘totally perfect’, ‘completely realized’, or ‘absolutely accomplished’)
V4-9. Unreal imagination’ is mind (citta), which is both cause (ālayā-vijñāna) and effect (’the seven active consciousnesses’), which ripen into the cognition of a perceiver and the perceived.
V10-17. The Three Natures are both existent and non-existent, both dual and non-dual. The imagined and other-dependent nature are defiled. The absolutely accomplished nature is pure.
V18 - V26. The Three Natures are not different in characteristic due to the unreality of duality, yet there is a conventional sequence to their order and entry.
PART TWO: The Magic Elephant 🐘
The ‘magic elephant’ is a reference to Chapter Two of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra
“It’s like a skilled magician with an assistant who gathers together tiles, shards, grass, leaves, and wood at the intersection of four paths and who creates all kinds of illusory things such as the bodies of elephants, etc.… All the ignorant, dull witted sentient beings, the kinds with bad intellect, without the slightest bit of knowledge, when they see and hear of these illusory things made of tiles, shards, grass, leaves, and wood they think, ‘This, what I am seeing, is really an elephant, etc..’ Thus, they steadfastly cling to what they see and what they hear of, and go on to say, ‘Only this is real, everything else is delusion.’
V27
māyākṛtaṃ mantravasāt khyāti hastyātmanā yathā / ākāramātraṃ tatrāsti hastī nāsti tu sarvathā //
It is like (yathā) an elephant which appears through the illusion-making power of a mantra, The elephant is a mere appearance (ākāra-mātra). It does not exist at all.
V28
svabhāvaḥ kalpito hastī paratantras tadākṛtiḥ / yas tatra hastyabhāvo'sau pariniṣpanna iṣyate //
The imagined nature is the elephant; the other-dependent nature is the apparitional form (ākṛti); The perfected nature is the non-existent nature of the elephant in the other-dependent (tatra).
V29
asatkalpas tathā khyāti mūlacittād dvayātmanā / dvayam atyantato nāsti tatrāsty ākṛtimātrakam //
Due to the root consciousness (mūla-citta), the false imagination (asatkalpa) appears as a duality. That duality is entirely unreal. All that exists there is a mere apparitional form (ākṛtimātra).
V30
mantravan mūlavijñānaṃ kāṣṭhavat tathatā matā / hastyākāravad eṣṭavyo vikalpo hastivad dvayam //
The root consciousness (mūla-vijñāna) can be compared to the mantra, suchness (tathatā) to the piece of wood (kāṣṭha); imagination (vikalpa) to an appearance of the elephant (hastyākāra); and duality to the elephant.
V31
arthatattvaprativedhe yugapal lakṣaṇatrayam / parijñā ca prahāṇaṃ ca prāptiś ceṣṭā yathākramam //
Understanding the three characteristics as the true nature of things (artha-tattva), there occurs - simultaneously* - knowledge (parijñā), abandonment (prahāṇa) and attainment (prāpti), respectively.
*The (singular) Truth is that things are of Three Natures (multiple).
V32
parijñānupalambho'tra hānirakhyānamiṣyate / upalambhanimittā tu prāptiḥ sākṣātkriyāpi sā //
There, ‘knowledge’ is non-perception (anupalambha), ‘abandonment’ is non-appearance (akhyāna), and ‘attainment’ is perception without any object as cause (upalambhanimittā). The last is direct realization (sākṣāt-kriyā)
V33
dvayasyānupalambhena dvayākāro vigacchati / vigamāt tasya niṣpanno dvayābhāvo'dhigamyate //
Duality disappears (dvayasya) through the non-perception of duality, and through the disappearance of the form of duality (dvaya-ākāro vigacchati), The perfected nature, which is the non-existence of duality, is understood.
V34
hastino'nupalambhaś ca vigamaśca tadākṛteḥ / upalambhaś ca kāṣṭhasya māyāyāṃ yugapad yathā //
Similarly, in the case of illusions (māyā), the non-perception of the elephant, the disappearance of its form, and the perception of the piece of wood, take place simultaneously.