Disorientation

Nyams arise via disorientation in terms of  habitual tendencies. As soon as referential perceptual mechanisms are released—to whatever degree—the psychophysical fields of the senses begin to relax into their own condition.

p76, 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 radical change

When we can enter into a condition without thought and remain present and awake in that experience for extended periods of time – we know that the relationship with thought has undergone a radical change. 

p51, 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 

All one can ‘do’

The journey involves whatever it involves and there is always a sense of time and distance – but with a fruitional path, those aspects of time and space have no direct application.  All one can ‘do’ when one reaches the goal, is to remain.

p74, 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 fruit of any practice

The fruit or result of any practice cannot actually be practised as such, because the end result of anything is theoretically a position of stasis.  One can make a journey and arrive at a destination – but having arrived at one’s destination, all that can be said is that one ‘enjoys being there’.   

p74, 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 

Open and embodied

Discovering the nondual state is not a process of internalisation.  We do not cut off from the external world.  Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or ideate is undivided from the nondual state – so, to be present, is to be entirely open and embodied.

p83, 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 

Freedom to manifest

When we dissolve shi-nè—and allow the natural energy of Mind to re-emerge from emptiness—we are not creating anything – we are simply allowing.  As soon as energy begins to re-emerge, all that is necessary is to allow that energy the freedom to manifest.

p52, 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 

Obsessive relationship

To investigate the nature of thought – we need to use some capacity other than thought.  In order to discover what other means there are at our disposal to investigate the nature of thought we need to detach from obsessive relationship with thought. 

p48, 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 closed system

Thought cannot examine itself in any ultimate sense – it is a closed system.  Thought can no more examine its own nature than a knife can cut itself, or an eye see itself.  The only way an eye can see itself is to avail itself of a mirror.  The nature of that mirror—vis à vis thought—is the natural reflective capacity of Mind, which is beyond thought.

p48, 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 

Gazing

We can consider the possibility of gazing at the glittering surface of the ocean of Mind – at sun-light and star-light glinting.  Gazing is an openness which sees—with transparence— the nature of our relationship with reference points.

p43-44, 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 natural function of Mind

It may come as a surprise that thought is not antithetical to the nondual state.  Thought is a natural function of mind.  Where nothing arises from emptiness, there is no energy – and, consequently, no clarity.  The reason for continuing in practice in order to arrive at a state without thought is that it provides the space to unlearn the neurotic relationship with thought. 

p50-51, 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 

Karma disappears

The actual meaning of karma is habituated perception and response – which is to say: how we interpret information, objects, situations, or persons dictates how we respond to them.  Karma disappears as soon as the perception-mind-of-karma disappears. 

p94, 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 freedom to experience

When allowing the emotional realm to be as it is, the freedom to experience the texture of life arises directly – and it becomes possible to sidestep the sour orthodoxy of preordained likes, dislikes, and habitual concepts.  Allowing perceptual life to be as it is, everything is self-liberated as it is – resulting in freedom from restrictive social rôles, conventional preoccupations, conservative anxieties, and mundane personal expectations.

p12, 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 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 

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 desire to be in charge

    The nature of existence continually helps and hinders the search for definition in a completely impartial manner.  The problem is the desire to be in charge of the defining process.  This is a highly complicated procedure – but it is so customary, that it is hardly noticed.  Rather than allowing continual re-definition (and occasionally lack of definition), the prevalent impetus is to attempt domination of the mutually defining and un-defining process which constitutes the flux of reality.  

p32, 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

Fear of non-existence

   The discovery of shi-nè confronts fear of non-existence as being both the driving force of duality – and the sparkling through of non-duality.  So—in one sense—it is quite justifiable to mistrust the nature of personal identity.  That mistrust however, is usually aimed in the wrong direction.  The open dimension of being is mistrusted rather than the conceptual criteria by which existence is habitually validated.                                                             

p31, 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

It seems elusive

   Dzogchen is a system of nondual catalysts which self-describe the fundamental nature of what we are through exploding the horizon of conventional reality. 
Dzogchen approaches our essential nature absolutely directly, but—because it is: too close, too accessible, too present, and too simple—it seems elusive.
Dzogchen—the primordial state—is entirely accessible.  Ironically however, it cannot be approached in isolation as an individual initiative.  Committed preparation under the guidance of a Lama is necessary.  The Lama is indispensable.

p5-7, 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 self-existent confidence of being

   Dzogchen is the pinnacle of Vajrayana Buddhism.  It is a cycle of teaching and of practices – but essentially Dzogchen is the primordial condition of the individual.  It is thus both within and beyond the scope of conventional religion.  As the primordial condition of the individual, Dzogchen is the state of referenceless relaxation in the vastness of each moment.
It is vast because it is undelineated by time.  It is referenceless because the moment is experienced without allusion to past moments or future moments.
Dzogchen is the self-existent confidence of being which arises spontaneously from beginninglessness.

p4-5, 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