Whenever I remember this story (told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche), I look at my life for symptoms of this rare disease—kindness—and whatever signs of health I exhibit cause me to stimulate new areas of infection. The most saddening aspect of life for me, is to witness immunity to the disease of kindness either in myself or others. Although I initially preferred the first story, the second has caused me to reflect a great deal on the nature of kindness – and how it can be encouraged in the world. The idea of kindness as an illness—with all its attendant concepts of infection and contagion—is highly creative. This manner of expression is a brilliant example of how Tantra turns language on it head.
p138, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.
Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4
We artificially separate experience into two fields: ‘perception’ and ‘field of perception’. The term ‘perception’ applies to the way in which we register the presence of the world through our sense faculties. The term ‘field of perception’ applies to the world that we perceive. With divisive logic we distance ourselves analytically from direct experience. We lose our ‘knowing’ and end up 'knowing about’'.
Our perception and field of perception are mutually self-creating. What we see incites a reaction which influences how we see it. How we view things changes how they are. Enlightened Mind is divisionless. Our perception and field of perception are completely and utterly interconnected, and this fundamental indivisibility is the real nature of experience.
p31, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8
The word ‘mindfulness’ is not a bad translation of dranpa (dran pa—smriti in Sanskrit) but it is more accurately translated as ‘resting in recollection’. Recollection does not mean thinking about a past event—but ‘being present with what has been received as teaching’. The word ‘awareness’ is not an equivalent for ‘dranpa’ – because ‘awareness’ relates to rigpa or non-dual awareness.
p63-64, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7
In Tantra, sensation is the path. That means every sensation: hot and cold; pleasure and pain; sharp and blunt; agony and ecstasy; hope and fear; falling in love and having a panic attack. Neither aspect of these polarities are ends in themselves. Tantra is simply, the one taste of all sensation. To practise Tantra is to ride the energy of duality.
No-one can be called a yogi, yogini, or tantrika, if they cannot experience pleasure and pain – and experience the one taste of the energy that is the ground of both experiences.
p10-11, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
The practice of shi-nè involves the renunciation of attachment to form as a reference point. Through shi-nè we learn that we cannot force thought. We need to be completely purposelessly welcoming. Whatever thought arises simply moves in its own way. Any approach involving force results either in hilarity or frustration. One needs a sense of humour about one’s condition. One catches oneself trying to force meditation – repeatedly. All we can do, however, is watch ourselves in the process of trying, until trying wears itself out with trying in the open space of awareness. This is patience in terms of shi-nè – as we speak of it from the point of view of the Four Naljors of Dzogchen sem-dé.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: The Ten Paramitas, Khandro Déchen
Our karma is entirely how we perceive the world – moment by moment. So the ‘law of karma’ is not just law, it is the entire legal system. It ranges from the inception of the legislature to the nature of law enforcement and punishment. Our perception is the legislation and our responses enforce it. We are our own judge, jury, and prosecution. We sentence ourselves, gaol ourselves, and execute ourselves. This is the only entirely accurate legal system – but its accuracy only exists within its own frame of reference.
Meditation is our only weapon against this repressive regime and constitutes civil disobedience in the form of ‘passive resistance’. By allowing the development of experiential space through shi-nè – through letting go and letting be – we discover our own intrinsic awareness. The Four Naljors of Dzogchen Sem-dé is one of the ultimate crimes against the ‘law of karma’ and is punishable by enlightenment – the final revolution and overthrow of the legal system.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: Karma: the personal police state Ngak'chang Rinpoche
I have thought about this question of power many times, since my discussions with Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche. I have realised that power has got very little to do with power to – but rather, power not to. It is not a question of supernormal abilities. It’s a question of being prepared to die in the next moment – to be totally insignificant. The power to be unafraid of looking like an idiot. The power not to care about what people think or say. It is not a question of being physically, intellectually, or emotionally strong – but of being open to annihilation. Everything has to matter—and not matter—at the same time.
p242, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.
Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4
It is said that meditation isn’t, because it’s not an end in itself. It is said that getting used to is, because the enlightened state is already there and we simply have to become accustomed to that. So, meditation is getting used to the enlightened state, cooperating with the enlightened state.
What’s important is simply being. We simply get used to the condition in which thoughts are not present or in which they arise and dissolve. Boredom is actually the threshold of discovery. This is just the point at which something interesting could happen—if we simply continue to sit.
p24, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
To integrate practice into everyday life, you can let go of the sharp divisions between the times when you’re sitting and the times when you’re not sitting. You should allow the spaciousness you discover in your sitting to overflow into your ordinary life experience. You can start by allowing the postpractice period to be a time when you remain completely with whatever you’re doing.
If you sit for an hour, make sure that you have at least fifteen to thirty minutes for the postmeditation period. When you get up from your sitting session, stand up slowly and with awareness. Continue to find the presence of your awareness in whatever sensation arises—but avoid conceptualizing about the process.
You could get up and make a cup of coffee. You could do the washing up. But whatever you do, simply be with what you’re doing.
p153-154, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
Imagination relies on empty perception. Painting relies on empty planes. Sculpture relies on empty space. Music relies on empty time. Literature relies on empty concepts. If we are to realise the art of freedom, if we are to discover our creative potential, we need to rely on the experience of our instrinsic vibrant emptiness—the beginningless ground of what we are.
The gateway to the art of freedom is the practice of shi-nè—our method of approaching the white canvas of Mind.
p49, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
Attuned intent is motivation without a ‘drag factor’. It’s streamlined—aerodynamic. It gives you access to incredible power and capacity for accomplishment of whatever needs to be accomplished. In order to accelerate into the unimaginable, we have to let go of the ballast—jettison the habits of view that create drag factors.
The drag factor is the thing that slows you down. Mixed and conflicting motivations produce a drag factor and inhibit our development and growth as human beings. As long as there’s a drag factor, we experience frustration and the unsatisfactory outcome of our wishes or intentions, whatever they might be. Attuned intent is unmixed motivation, motivation without conflict—single-pointed motivation.
p145-146, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
The awakened mind warriors delight in unbounded wealth because their appreciation is unlimited. Appreciation generates generosity which knows no limits.
The Vajrayana view of wealth is grounded in the understanding that one owns everything that enters one’s sense fields. We own whatever we appreciate, to the extent that we appreciate it and for the duration that we appreciate it. We do not require personal ownership in order to own. Our ownership does not restrict the ownership of others, because our ownership is simply that of appreciative faculties.
This non-possessive, non-controlling absence of tenure is called ‘vajra greed’ or ‘non-dual greed’ – greed on behalf of others. Greed on behalf of all beings is both the maximum possible avarice, and the ultimate expansion of generosity.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: The Ten Paramitas, Khandro Déchen
One begins with the accidental nature of what is occurring—and accepts that as the nature of one's current reality.
We do not have to begin with clarity, because clarity is inherent in every situation. We simply have to begin with that which presents itself. This will include our mistakes and the mistakes of others. It will include errors, omissions, miscalculations, appropriations, misappropriations, faux pas, indiscretions, and oversights . . .
Clarity is a groundless experience, but one that we can only realise when ground and groundlessness are realised a non-dual. When we accept confusion as the rich ground from which clarity can be discovered, we can cease being our own enemies.
p3, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7
Simply allow the given situation to be what it is. Simply avoid the urge to convert it into something else – that is to say, do not attempt to translate it in terms of an educational process. Simply see it. Simply perceive it. Then simply allow it to abandon itself.
If you experience something and then allow the experience to abandon itself, you will provide space in which felt-knowledge and phenomena merely take their own course. Self-abandonment is the yeast in the fermentation process in which mind gives rise to wine – rather than whining.
p76, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7
What I try to encourage is appreciation. True appreciation is, of course, natural elegance. Fundamental appreciation of phenomena—in the very nature of their appearance—is all that is needed. There are the phenomena which we apprehend, the phenomena of our being, replete with the sense fields which animate that being. Elegance is composed of delight and fearless embracement in which we are not gluttonous, timid, or torpid. Every deranged default impetus is overridden with the sense of splendour, the sense of exquisiteness, the sense of immaculacy.
From the point of view of Dzogchen, the beauty of genuine decorum lies in the non-manipulativeness of its natural etiquette and unpretentious elegance. We should all therefore aspire to appreciate what is beautiful in each other–whatever the clothing or absence thereof.
p196, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7
Space exists but we tend to miss it. We miss space because we are always looking for it. A vast dimension exists, but we never seem to see it. We tend to be too concerned with the microscopes and telescopes of conventional credibility, but we never gaze at immediacy with our naked eyes. If we simply looked we could find the specialness of reality.
All we need to do is gaze tenderly at the living bedazzlement of existence. We could just simply gaze at whatever arises and enjoy the immense vision. We would then realise that celebration is taking place in the vastness of inner and outer space.
p198, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7
Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche told me “Vajrayana is not ordinary and so ordinary language cannot be used. Vajrayana is the poetry of existence beyond space and time. Vajrayana is every art and you must be practising every art. If you do not practise every art – how can you know the elements? And if you do not know the elements – how can you know the essence of the elements and open your eyes to great vision?”
p3, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.
Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4
Silent sitting seemed to be the heart of it all – and so I sat every day. The idea of sitting was intriguing because I'd sat silently since childhood – and had been harangued about it by my father “Why can’t you play like a normal boy?!” I was always able to sit and stare – without going off into dreams. I’d just observe the colours and sounds of my environment and allow them to drift in and out of my observation.
It was the idea of silence that eventually led me to Dzogchen as being the heart of everything.
p26, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.
Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4
One needs to approach sexuality with respect, kindness, and openness. One needs to understand that the alternative to celibacy in Buddhism is not merely selfish indulgence of one’s desire at the expense of others. One can ‘dress’ sexual misconduct in the clothing of freedom and lack of moralistic inhibitions, but it remains an obstacle to practice nonetheless.
This is an important statement in view of the high regard shown to celibate practitioners in terms of their discipline. It could be something of a shock to some to realise that non-celibacy is a more demanding path, and that its discipline is vast and subtle. It should be accurately understood, that ordination into the gö kar chang lo’i dé (gos dKar lCang lo’i sDe) is not chosen as an ‘easier option’ than celibacy. The monastic path is simpler and easier to follow. It is completely structured and designed to support the individual, whereas the structure of Vajrayana embraces endless nuances of reality as the play of precision and passion.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: Tralam-mé: founding relationships on Vajrayana principles by Ngak’chang Rinpoche & Khandro Déchen
Tralam-mé in ordinary terms pertains to anything that happens in the sky –
weather conditions, precipitation, rainbows, the Aurora Borealis, asteroids,
meteor showers, seeing the stars in the sky, the moon in the sky, visions in
the sky, whatever happens in the sky.
In terms of Dzogchen long-dé tralam-mé is used in the context of vajra
romance – and thus we translate the term as poetic turbulence. Poetic
turbulence is the romantic energetic which is sparked by the capacity for
realisation in two individuals.
Tralam-mé does not exist simply as an interface between male-female
romantic couples; it exists between everyone and everything everywhere.
Tralam-mé affects how people relate with each other. We call it poetic
turbulence as an emptiness and form coinage. Tralam-mé
is the manner in which people accidentally rhyme with each other – the
manner in which they fall in love.
Tralam-mé allows you to experience the non-dual sparkling through
in respect of your partner.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: Tralam-mé Questions & answers with Ngak’chang Rinpoche
