The fire of wisdom can burn away illusion

To practise Tantra is to plummet into wisdom-fire.  The word ‘fire’ is used because fire transforms solidity into emptiness and shows us the empty nature of the material world.  Fire is a fascinating element – it’s both tangible and intangible.  You can’t pick it up – you can only pick up what it’s burning. It’s intangible and yet it destroys or devours tangibility.  It has great power to transform substance, yet it seems to be substanceless.  So wisdom-fire as a Tantric term carries the sense in which wisdom; that is to say primordial wisdom, can change the world as we perceive it quite radically.  The fire of wisdom can burn away illusion – it can reduce our own hard and substance-orientated concepts to ashes. 

p12, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4  

We have to let go of what we are

Dying means letting go of self-image and self-conception.  We have to let go of what we are and open ourselves to what we can un-become.  From a Buddhist point of view it is unbecoming not to un-become.  In order to un-become, we must let go of security and find the security of insecurity.  We must discover the freedom of insecurity in which security and insecurity dance as nondual display.  If we cannot let our past preconceptions die we have no future, and cannot experience the present.  Unless we can die, we cannot be alive in the moment – and the moment is all we ever have.

p87, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

The merest marginal moment

The question of death however, is subtle.  It is not merely an issue of when the last breath is taken.  Death pervades life.  Death is a continual presence.  Death assumes the form of: conclusion, termination, removal, exodus, exclusion, subtraction, confiscation, separation, parting, loss, departure, and in fact – any finale.  Death can be the merest marginal moment in which something mutates, misfires, or changes.  Death is not simply the day-by-day shift of the aging process which adds its lines to our faces, but the infinitesimal truncations which enable ‘old versions of ourselves’ to die and be replaced by rebirths in each passing moment. 

p182, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

People ...mostly could not help themselves

Apart from the sense of bemusement, there was an inherent obligation to be kindly rather than indulgent – whenever the choice lay before me.  People were as they were – and mostly could not help themselves.  I had come to understand that I could—and therefore should—step outside the framework in which I had to take offence at anything. 

p350-351, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2 

Gö kar chang lo vows

The fact that I’d taken gö kar chang lo vows was always with me.  It affected everything I did or said.  I had become careful: far more careful than I had ever been before – but also curiously carefree.  The vicissitudes of life were vaguely like a pantomime: they were scenarios with which I had to engage with whatever earnestness seemed suitable to the occasion.  It was possible to be earnestly light-hearted in the face of whatever came along. 

p350, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2 

Romance goes beyond limitations

How can one be open to romance when one is tied up in limitations which govern how it can occur? Basically we need as few limitations as possible.  Body type is a limitation which causes people to restrict themselves too much – especially at this point in history.  People have been surprised to hear us say that a yogi or yogini should be attracted to all body types: peaceful, joyous, and wrathful.  That is to say: thin, sensuous, and large.  One cannot entertain concepts of being a tantrika if there are body types to which one could feel no attraction. 

p152-153, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Existential kaleidoscope

A kyil’khor can be created from coloured chalk dust.  Unexpectedly a wind blows – and the pattern is no longer what it was.  One can grieve the lost pattern – or enjoy the mingling of colours and the strange shapes created by the staggered disintegration.  Life appeared to be some sort of existential kaleidoscope in which the meaning could only be in the moment.  If one tried to extend the meaning beyond the moment – the meaning could become increasingly meaningless.

p167, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2 

There is a gap there

If we want to cultivate some understanding of what is meant by emptiness, we have to look for the reflections of emptiness within the mirror of the world of form. We need to look at the moments when our experience is transitional; when one sequence of events seems to conclude, and the beginning of another has not yet become obvious. There is a gap there – and that gap is emptiness.

p33, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Simple, ordinary, and direct

Bodhicitta is its own success.  One who has authentically taken the bodhisattva vow is spontaneously pleasant and accommodating – a gentleman, a gentlewoman.  Seriously considering the benefit of others before oneself deflates the pneumatic pressure of duality.  It is extraordinarily simple, ordinary, and direct—saints of all denominations have been doing it for thousands of years.  They all did the same thing.  They let go of self interest (the individual salvation of the pratyékabuddhayana) and are therefore free of the strategising ploys which inhibit cheerfulness. 

p122, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Simple, blunt, uncompromising

When we commit ourselves to practice and to opening, we commit ourselves to change – and when we change, we die.  We have to die in order to change.  If we cannot die we cannot change.  This is a simple, blunt, uncompromising statement of fact. 

p87, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Obsession

I'd succeeded and failed simultaneously.  The failure?  That was obvious – but what of the success?  That comprised of my having had the single pointed intention to do what I had done.  I'd carried through with a plan.  I'd not given up.  That was important for a Buddhist practitioner.  The lengths to which obsession carries a person, in terms of activity, is the mark of someone who stands the chance of realising goals in Buddhism. 

p75, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2

Then the mind begins to awaken

The rider must focus on the horse.  In this way, the rider is empty in relation to the form of the horse.  Through this relationship, the horse is able to respond fully, and achieve its potential.  The meditator learns emptiness in order to clarify the relationship with form, and thereby discover the nonduality of emptiness and form.  Then the mind begins to awaken.  

p10, Battlecry of Freedom  Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8  

The flow of whatever is

   Being is continually poised on the brink of effortlessness – but continually creates distractions in order to sustain the sense of divorced individuation.  These delirious, distressing, and dreary deviations from effortlessness are the mechanisms employed to maintain the illusion of duality.  Nonduality, on the other hand, is completely relaxed in the flow of whatever is.

p39-40, Shock Amazement: The four naljors and four ting-ngé’dzin from the Dzogchen series of the nature of Mind.   Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2018, ISBN 978-1-898185-45-1 

A provocative irritant

  As soon as shi-nè is practised with sufficient determination, it is discovered that ‘definitions of existence’ are a barrier to enjoying existence.  The barrier is built of feelings of insubstantiality, fear, isolation, agitation, and phlegmatic tedium.  Shi-nè is a provocative irritant to each of these feelings.  Life also irritates these feelings – but not as definitively.  The dualistic rationale continually seeks definition – so, in a sense, shi-nè causes the relaxation of that continual struggle for self-definition.

p31-32, Shock Amazement: The four naljors and four ting-ngé’dzin from the Dzogchen series of the nature of Mind.   Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2018, ISBN 978-1-898185-45-1 

Worthwhile just as we are

We have ideas about ourselves—about how we should be or could be—and we want other people to believe those self-images.  We also want the Lama to believe these self-images.  The problem is that as long as we want the Lama to believe our self-images we will never begin to practise.  We will never take the first step.  If we wish the Lama to accept us as being better than we are – there is no hope of anything apart from stagnation.  Once we have shed inhibition about dropping self-image however, the situation can improve radically.  We can then realise that we are fundamentally good – and that our goodness surpasses notions of worthy and unworthy.  We can be worthwhile just as we are.

p153, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Abandon inhibition

Facing yourself in terms of Vajrayana means acknowledging the worst and being prepared—immediately—to work with that as the basis of practice.  Once we decide simply to see what is there – we might see ourselves as pitiful specimens.  We might simultaneously see ourselves as fortunate.  A Vajrayana practitioner will naturally have talents as well as handicaps.  The important factor is being able to abandon inhibition.  The major inhibition is self-image. 

p153, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Earth, water, fire, air, space

    Earth is the nondual quality of solidity and intangibility.  Water is the nondual quality of permanence and impermanence.  Fire is the nondual quality of separateness and inseparability.  Air is the nondual quality of continuity and discontinuity.  Space is the nondual quality of definition and lack of definition.  As soon as we attempt to split the qualities and adhere only to the form qualities of the elements, we create samsara.  The form qualities of emptiness cannot be split from the emptiness qualities of form.

p27, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

This is here, that is there

With the arising of the elements comes the arising of time and space.  As soon as anything arises within primal space – co-ordinates come into being: ‘this is here, that is there. I look at this, then I see that. I see this on the background of that. I experience things in sequence.’  When there is no arising from primal space, time and space cease to exist.  In that condition these terms have no meaning.  The elements create direction out of their own intrinsic nature and time comes into being as the basis of their interpenetrating diversity.  From this essential visionary perspective, time exists as the flux that links endless focal points of tangible and intangible experience.

p75, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

There is nothing wrong with thought

     There is nothing wrong with thought – even though some categories of meditation instruction would have you accept that this is the case.  According to Dzogchen, thought is a natural function of Mind – and, just as the other sense faculties are natural to physical existence, so too is thought.  Moreover, thought—according to Buddhism in general—is a sense-faculty, rather than a function that is separate from the senses.

p35, Shock Amazement  : The four naljors and four ting-ngé’dzin from the Dzogchen series of the nature of Mind.
Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2018, ISBN 978-1-898185-45-1 

Dzogchen becomes feasible

     Recognition of the nondual state is the basis for approaching Dzogchen – but, in order to enter the path of self-liberation, perceptual phenomena must come to be perceived from the experiential standpoint which is empty of references.  It is only when the undivided nature of ‘that which arises’ and ‘that from which phenomena arise’ is first glimpsed that Dzogchen becomes feasible.

p17, Shock Amazement  : The four naljors and four ting-ngé’dzin from the Dzogchen series of the nature of Mind.
Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2018, ISBN 978-1-898185-45-1

The nature of attraction

     We attract each other through evidence of our liberated potential – and this is visible to varying degrees, according to the spectrum of appreciation which our lives portray:
The more naturally we express what we are – the more relaxed we are with our capacities and capabilities.  The more unaffectedly we articulate what we are – the less we engage in artifice.  The more unpretentiously we convey what we are – the less we concern ourselves with the projection of a calculated persona.  The more we abandon the need to make demands of arising situations – the more open we are to the mysterious arising of khandro-pawo mirroring.

p150, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Life teaches us moment by moment

    Everyday we are presented with opportunities to expand our hearts and disinhibit our innate kindness.  Everyday life is also the perfect place to observe how we are, because life teaches us moment by moment – whatever we feel in response to anything shows us the pattern of our perception.  In this way, if we are open enough and are honest with ourselves, we can learn a great deal about the way our energies are constricted.

p67, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

The only perfect morality

   The only perfect morality is awareness.  The only perfect morality or ethical position is awareness, because all actions which spring from awareness are choiceless pure appropriateness.
Kindness is as close as we can ever come to a moral approximation of awareness.  Having a good heart goes further than anything in terms of empathising with the nondual state.  

p49, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Whatever the consequences

   To hold to your word whatever the consequences would be about the strongest basis for the practice of Tantra.  I would also say that making a practice of keeping your word in this way would change your life significantly – the fabric of your existence would become Tantra; you would actually start to live that!  

p193, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

There‘s no guarantee at all

   The purpose of the teaching is not to improve outer conditions.  Although, I would say that living according to the Tantric view would actually enable you to get much more out of life than you would have done otherwise.  I would say that your life would be improved in many ways.  This may sound contradictory, but I think that there’s a significant point here: you cannot judge the teachings according to the criterion of whether your life has ‘improved’.  You can only judge the teachings against your own evolution of awareness and kindness.  If your outer circumstances improve then that’s wonderful, but it’s not a sign of your practice. The concept that spiritual practice, or success in spiritual practice, leads to a life in which things increasingly work out to your advantage, is highly spurious.

p200, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

The Tantric joke

   We feel ourselves to be solid, yet we are nervous about our existence.  We feel our world to be coherent at one moment; and at another, the whole fabric of our life-event can seem a trifle questionable.  If we never experience our intrinsic spaciousness – we can only ever experience this alternation as: pain, discomfort, alienation; boredom, panic or dissatisfaction.  But as soon as we begin to practise silent sitting meditation; to stare into the nature of what we are; we become a little suspicious of our life-event. We become intrigued by the transparent ambivalences of our situation. It could be quite possible that things are both not what they seem; and, simultaneously, exactly what they seem. This could be called the Tantric joke, the vajra sense of humour that continually prompts us to ask the questions: What is going on? Why is this solidity so solid and also so insubstantial? Why am I consumed by so much certainty and uncertainty?

p47, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Warriors and cherry blossom

 In a battle, warriors have to act in reaction to everything that presents itself.  Warriors do not run away in fear. They do what must be done—without hesitation—because that is the nature of the life they have chosen.  The Samurai of Japan compared the nature of their lives to cherry blossom.  A pretty image isn’t it?  Actually it’s quite blunt.  Cherry blossom falls at the slightest gust of wind.  It drops from the twig at the slightest touch – so the life of the samurai is as precarious as cherry blossom.  It takes a heroic sense of humour—a fearless whimsicality—to feel yourself balancing on that existential razor’s edge. It is however, the most solid unshakeable foundation for nondual action.

p79-80, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN 978-1-898185-06-2

There is no life-dissatisfaction appeals tribunal

   When we start to find some event in life painful or when we have experienced a series of calamities, it is helpful to avoid involvement in the ‘unfairness game’.  If you say: “This is unfair!  I don’t deserve this!” you only succeed in increasing your pain. It would be better to side-step this frustration and confusion, simply by saying: “This is what is happening”. There is no consumer-protection society in the sky to whom you can appeal. There is no life-dissatisfaction appeals tribunal where you can demand: “Life isn’t what I expected, I want my money back!” This is it. This is what we have. Fair or unfair, our situation is what it is, right here and now: in any context you can imagine…  It is the texture of your experience, and you cannot disown it. You can only ‘try’ to disown it, by creating a more complex level of confusion around it.’

p92-93, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

A natural movement toward non-duality

   The word nyam means meditational experience or meditational manifestation.  When we practice meditative methods of any kind, experiences occur due to the fact that we are not engaged with duality as intensely.  These experiences are valid in as much as they reflect the fact of our engagement in practise.  Nyams are not realisation per se, but they partake of a natural movement toward nonduality.
Nyams—being unstable—have no enduring characteristics.  They are therefore unreliable as indicators of anything beyond the fact that the pattern of dualism has been disrupted. 

p215, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Something bigger than 'me and my process'

   Those who attempt to practise Dzogchen out of context with the religious tradition that gave rise to it, often find themselves lacking the impetus to maintain regular practice.

Lacking the background of a religious context, people often find that the basic enthusiasm for the discipline of meditation dissipates.  Certainly, without the richness and support of a religious tradition, it proves difficult to persevere through times when practice seems ‘unrewarding’.  From our experience, one has to belong somewhere.  One has to be part of something which is sufficiently larger than oneself.  To find support in a higher, deeper, broader context, one requires a context which goes beyond the isolated island of ‘me and my process’.  

p6, Shock Amazement  : The four naljors and four ting-ngé’dzin from the Dzogchen series of the nature of Mind.
Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2018, ISBN 978-1-898185-45-1

You can either be irritated or you can be irritated

Many people—but only honest people—find spaciousness irritating, and would prefer the claustrophobia and snugness of deranged density.  The simplicity of acknowledging spaciousness requires precision.  Precision does not allow the seeming safety of woolly-edged spin-doctoring.
We enjoy a soupçon of confusion, in which to establish the experiential ground rules from which non-duality can be seen as the unobtainable godhead.  Non-duality is irritatingly possible – because it is our authentic nature and somehow, being reminded of that, is irritating.  So … you can either be irritated or you can be irritated.  It is entirely up to you.

p69-70, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

We are not speaking in terms of nihilistic negation

  Form is the dance partner of emptiness – and emptiness cannot be understood apart from form.  Emptiness is the dance partner of form – and form cannot dance without emptiness.  Form could be said to be the apparently tangible aspect of experience and existence – but form is empty.  One can only understand form in the confident absence of tangibility.  That does not mean however that everything is nothing.  When we speak of emptiness as nothingness or voidness, we are not speaking in terms of nihilistic negation—but in terms of nothingness being inseparable from everythingness. 

p49, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

A process of evolution

  Meditation is not a progression through stages, nor is it advancing or climbing.  Meditation is a process, not entirely dissimilar from maturing or growing older.  Development occurs over a period of time – but it is not gradual.  It is a fluctuating stream which contains gradual change, stasis, and sudden change.  This is precisely what occurs in terms of meditation.  Meditation is not based on stages as heavily defined segments of an established spiritual framework, but on a process that is taking place in those who meditate.  That process also takes place in the context of our living situations.

p79, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The dance of sub-atomic particles

   The elements are an array of characteristics which can be understood both in terms of duality and nonduality.  They express themselves at every level at which existence can be understood – yet they go beyond the sense-making remit of quotidian existence.  They travel into the sphere of unconditioned potentiality where language can no longer even hint at meaning.  The elements are the fabric of the Earth and the solar system in which it orbits the Sun.  Beyond that, the elements outstrip the extent to which science can currently see.  There is nothing other than the elements.  The dance of sub-atomic particles is simply the elements performing – arising and dissolving in a manner not entirely different from the way in which they perform within the facets of our perceptual continua.

p196-197, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

With regard to ‘thought’ and ‘emotion’

   There is no difference between thought and emotion – in the same way as there is no difference between a breeze and a gale.  With the first there is simply the movement of mind – and with the second there is simply the movement of air.  In that respect, emotions are gusts of wind – or waves on the sea.  

Both the gusting of the wind and the billowing of the sea begin with a simple shift in time and space.  There is a single thought to which self-referential consequence is attributed – and this leads to more of the same.  This tends to generate squalls, storms, gales, and hurricanes.  

Emotional embroilment is the result of ocean of Mind failing to self-recognise – and understand its waves to be its fundamental nature.  There is no relaxation in this – and neither is there the opportunity to make creative use of the energy that prevents relaxation.

Posted by Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen to sangha on Telegram, 18th April 2020

All our attempts to establish security fail

   We survey our perceptual horizon and categorise everything that appears on it as: proving our existence in terms of duality; disproving our existence in terms of duality; or as some vague neutrality, which presents no opportunity for manipulation either way.  All our attempts to establish security fail.  Our efforts fail because they are based on maintaining the illusion of duality.    
   There is no way that we can establish the security we’re looking for as long as we operate from the principle that duality actually functions.  In this sense, enlightenment is the continual realisation that duality is not functional. 

p108, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Liberating anyone and everyone

      The symbolic nature of Tantra is a reflection of the spontaneous creativity, that is inherent in the fabric of reality.  There is no aspect of Tantra that has been invented through the processes of a manipulative intellect.  Tantric imagery has all been spontaneously realised and communicated with the implicit function of liberating anyone and everyone into their authentic condition. 

p101, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Self-secret buddhas

 

   Vajrayana begins with the premise that dualism is a state of prejudice against non-duality. On the basis of this prejudice against non-duality, infinite forms of prejudice will manifest in order to obfuscate non-duality.

Beings may exist in a state of dualistic distortion, but that which is distorted is a distorted version of non-duality. Because of this, it is possible to employ the energy of duality to transform “what seems to be” into “what actually is”.

Beings are self-secret buddhas and the powerful methodology of Vajrayana enables the realization of this through the empty form of the yidam. From the perspective of the visionary practices of Vajrayana, it is possible to transform every aspect of prejudice against otherness—of every possible description.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen in Global BuddhistDoor Magazine  posted on the  Drala Jong Facebook page 20th March 2020  

Keep calm and carry on

   The best way that we know for people to keep calm—or become calm in the first place—is called ཞི་གནས་ / zhi gNas / Shi-né. 

This has been translated in many ways: the most common being Calm Abiding. Literally it means Peace Remain.   We usually translate this as ‘Remaining Uninvolved With What Arises’.  This is the only way there is – or has ever been.  There are many different practices.  There are many different mantras.  There are many different visualisations – but, basically, if one has no basis in ཞི་གནས་ then these marvellous practices will be of no use in any case.
  
So, this returns us to Silent Sitting.  If you are calm then, everyone around you will become calm – simply by knowing that you are calm.  The more people who become calm the calmer people will become.

Posted by Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen to sangha on WhatsApp 14th March 2020

Like walking through a minefield

   Life is a little like walking through a minefield – you never know when you might step on something—a circumstance of your life—that will explode a programmed pattern of perception.  If the cause is not encountered the reaction will not occur.  One of the principles of the monastic path is to regulate the secondary causes—in terms of life circumstances—as much as possible to avoid triggering unhelpful reactions that deepen patterning.  The tantric path however says: ‘Bring it all on!’ so that you have the opportunity to transform distorted perception and response into enlightened perception and response.

p169, Illusory Advice Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books, 2015, ISBN: 978-1898185-37-6 

We are prejudiced against our own natural state

 Fear of otherness lies at the root of prejudice.  From the point of view of duality – nothing is as ‘other’ or dissimilar as the nondual state.  From the perspective of nonduality we are prejudiced against our own natural state.  In the condition of dualistic estrangement – our own beginningless enlightenment becomes alien to us, and we are therefore antagonistic to it in every form it assumes.  From this primitive antagonism every type of prejudice arises. 

p156, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

The otherness of emptiness

     Vajrayana is based upon the experience of ‘the otherness of emptiness’ – so otherness holds no fear for those who practice according to the principle of transformation.  Tantrikas develop vajra pride which—because it is founded on emptiness—allows the possibility of assuming infinite forms of otherness: otherness of colour, otherness of shape, otherness of gender, otherness of disposition, and limitless other varieties of otherness.  Every variant of vajra otherness is a glorious manifestation of the nondual state as it sparkles through the appearance of every permutation of our humanity.

p155-156, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Blue is blue

  The context of Vajrayana is one in which symbolism is self evident: blue is blue; green is green; red is red; white is white; yellow is yellow; raven caws; wolf howls, frog croaks, bull bellows; scorpion arches its tail; cockerel crows; snake hisses; pig shrieks; sky is azure; sky is grey; sky glimmers with stars; horse whinnies; rain is refreshing; leaves are green; tears are wet; skin is soft; espresso steams; brandy leaves a pleasant burning sensation on the palate; wind moves; snow flurries; water sparkles —— meaning is no longer hidden within the search for meaning.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche, posted on Telegram to apprentices, 21st February 2020, 
and The Bristol Talks: Ngak'chang Rinpoche on Vajrayana Topics on the Aro Community website.   

Glimmer with limitlessness

   The more one understands the symbolism of Vajrayana, the more one understands that everyday life IS Vajrayana – and, when that begins to become apparent, one’s life commences to glimmer with limitlessness. 

Empowerment performs itself all the time: at the bus stop; on the peak of a mountain; in the cinema; in the midst of a Finnish forest; in the bath; on Freak Street in Kathmandu; on horseback in the Laughing Water range of the Rocky Mountains; and, on the factory floor. 

This may sound banal, or profound, but the profundity of it is often too subtle to see. 

One has to authentically understand the context of Vajrayana if one is to stand a chance of everyday life exploding into symbolic meaning. 

Ngak'chang Rinpoche, posted on Telegram to apprentices, 21st February 2020, 
and The Bristol Talks: Ngak'chang Rinpoche on Vajrayana Topics on the Aro Community website. 

The Vajrayana that is already there

 Knowledge of Vajrayana is intrinsic to human beings, in the sense that Vajrayana is our condition.  It is the thread of continuity which runs through every aspect of what we are.  In this sense Vajrayana may be invisible – but it is also sharply and poignantly perceptible.  The Lama shows us the reality that Vajrayana is already there as the basic energy of our existence.

p68, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

‘Thinking’ and ‘the thinker’

   In the non-dual state we are present with the free movement of whatever arises.  Thought is simply an ornament of perception.  ‘Thinking’ and ‘the thinker’ are not isolated events which solicit each other for reassurance.  Thinking and concept can simply exist as ornaments of the non-dual state – free of the artificial function in which they are goaded into providing proofs that we are solid, permanent, separate, continuous, and defined.
There is —actually—no way to understand the free manifestation of concept within the non-dual state from the perspective of dualism. 

p206, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Freedom

   Freedom is the absence of self-consciousness.  The absence of self-consciousness allows generosity, transparence, decentralised desire, uninhibited action, and spaciousness.  
Being free, you do not need to be pathologically alert – as if there were emotional predators within every crevice of the societal milieu.
Being free does not merely mean dispensing with diapers at the due time.  Freedom is the discovery of self-existent confidence rather than breaking free from ‘the ties that bind’.

p210, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Trust

   Trusting yourself  – in the sense of meditation, is a question of expanding—of slowly expanding the expression of sitting.  Through sitting, self-existent communication is discovered as the nature of the world.  It becomes a completely real world, rather than a world of bewilderment and pain.  You begin to trust yourself because you begin to trust the nature of the elements; the nature of your perception; the nature of your emotions; the nature of your physicality; and, the nature of your psychology.  It is all there to see and it is an open space.

p205, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Taking a shine

    When attraction and desire are awakened—and especially within the romantic sexual dimension—two things happen simultaneously: we shine, and we also perceive the shining quality of our focus of desire—we start to see being ‘in the pink’.  This is also why people’s pupils dilate.  The pupils dilate in order to see more of the shining quality.  This shining quality is the lustre of the primordial state as it manifests within the dimension of nirmanakaya.

p225, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7