We're all equal in the sense that we are all enlightened. Then, we're all unequal in our experience of clarity or confusion. In the ultimate sphere of existence there is no difference between people. But in the relative sphere of existence there are relative differences between people and that can function usefully in terms of active compassion.
Say that a child acts in a spiteful way towards you. You recognise that he or she has limited capacity to understand the outcome of their acts and how they're understood in the adult world. It means you can make a lot of allowances for them. It means that you can be kind. You can be tolerant. You can be forgiving.
It's all based on understanding; understanding that someone has less capacity; less intelligence; less insight; more pain; more confusion – whatever is the condition of the person. If you know that someone is in more pain than you are, you can let go of any animosity that might arise in relation to what they do.
p19-21, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
It is important to have a broad view of the teachings of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. If you come across contradictions, then you avoid confusion by remembering that there are different vehicles and styles within the schools that each have their functioning principles. Through this means you cannot possibly develop a sectarian view. All the schools are magnificently suitable vehicles for liberation of beings, and at the level where it actually matters, they all have the same essence.
p226-227, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
Through the development of spaciousness, our patterning can become totally open and transparent. We can view perception. We can recognise intention. We can motivate responses.
When our patterning becomes transparent, we can laugh at the compulsion of our desire, at the fearfulness of our aversion, and at the wilfulness of our stupidity. Every moment becomes an opportunity for freedom and realisation.
Ultimately, finding presence of awareness in the dimension of the moment is the experience of non-dual emptiness and form.
p150, Spacious Passion Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books, 2006 ISBN: 978-0-9653948-4-0
The more you try to force thought out, the more of a problem it becomes. The more you disapprove of your own neuroses, the more of a problem they become. The time to disapprove of them is if they are hurting others; and then in the moment. But one does not go into punishing oneself for having them at other times. If one is aware that one has patterns, then one has to say, I need to have some awareness while this pattern is performing
. If I punish myself for having the pattern whilst I am having it, then this actually acts as a screen which hides the neurosis – I can be the good person who is disapproving of the bad habit. That means I never get to see this habit, this neurosis, because I am too busy being the person who is disapproving of it. This is actually a way of maintaining the neurosis. The only way I see through a neurosis is to be with it. This is a great value of silent sitting.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: Compassion - Questions and Answers.
Ngak'chang Rinpoche.
