A certain degree of chutzpah

A tantrika requires a certain degree of chutzpah.  But that’s not to say that Tantra can’t help you short-circuit insecurity, fear, loneliness, anxiety, and depression.  This may sound like a complete contradiction – but there is an escape clause: devotion.  You can short-circuit all your neurotic sensitivities if you have complete confidence in the practice.  But you can never let that slip.

 p215, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Each Mind-moment

Ecstatic appreciation of every moment of experience is simply what happens when we give up on our attempts to create reality according to the banal dictates of security.  When I say that “the texture of whatever happens is, in itself, the implicit meaning of every Mind-moment”, there is the sense in which each Mind-moment is, in it’s nakedness, the state of enlightenment.

p209, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

The sexual dimension of being

Tantrikas remain always in ecstatic embrace with the khandro or pawo.  Tantrikas refrain from subverting the sexual dimension of their being in the attempt to avoid authentic relationship with the khandro or pawo.  They avoid obfuscating the inner pawo or inner khandro by objectifying women or men according to sexually distorted or degraded stereotypes.

Aro Encyclopaedia Index: From the commentaries by Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen on the ’ug-Kyi Lab-Nga – the five Owl Precepts from the gTérmas of Khyungchen Aro Lingma.

#dralajongquote

Drala Jong

Freeloading as a way of life

Tantrikas avoid taking anything that is not freely offered.  They avoid freeloading as a way of life.  They do not leave others to carry out work which they have been allotted.  They do not avoid work and allow others to carry a greater share than would have been theirs if appropriate assistance had been forthcoming. They do not fail to volunteer when help is needed.  They abstain from asking excessive favours of others, or expecting to be ‘carried’ in life.  They avoid abusing hospitality or taking advantage of the time and generosity of others.  They do not steal the time of other practitioners by the refusal to be real, or by engaging in the adoption of an ‘artificial buddhist personality.

Aro Encyclopaedia Index: From the commentaries by Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen on the ’ug-Kyi Lab-Nga – the five Owl Precepts from the gTérmas of Khyungchen Aro Lingma.

#dralajongquote

Drala Jong