To be brave

To be brave is to be a pamo (dP mo / female warrior).  To be brave you simply have to give up and accept the consequences of every situation that arises, in the knowledge that there is little you can do to prevent calamity – apart from persevering. 

p135, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Maniacally welcoming

Those for whom mayhem is magical display,find Vajrayana maniacally welcoming.  Although it is a high energy arena – it becomes spacious for those who have the courage to relax into those breakers.

p41, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

In the best cases

 

We do not like anyone to have to alter how they are in terms of their personalities and proclivities – apart from kindness and courtesy to others.  This means—in the best cases—that they are able to disagree without causing offence.  When there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ behind a view – it can be expressed in an unwithheld manner.

p239, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Creativity

Becoming cheerfully creative means becoming open to playing with ideas, and having enthusiasm in carrying them forward as a mutual project.  You can only feel creative by being creative – and you can kick-start that at any moment as a matter of will.

 p239, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Happiness

I was not saying that happiness and realisation were synonymous.  I was saying that you should allow yourself to be happy.  The two words however are linked.  Happiness is closer to realisation than depression. 

p238, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Bewilderment and wonderment

We oscillate between bewilderment and wonderment, and practice allows us to experience a space where duality and non-duality begin to flicker.

p224, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

For practice to mean anything

For practice to mean anything, one has to change for the better.  One has to be free—or freer—from habitual responses such as territorial avarice, petulance, selfishness, manipulativeness, and obdurate obfuscatory self-protectiveness. 

p19, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

An unequivocal effect

Practitioners whose experience of the non-dual state has had an unequivocal effect on perceptions in daily life, are people who are no longer subject to sulkiness, sullenness, and surliness.

p19, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The prison of moodiness

One must be able to remain free of the prison of moodiness – the infantile tendency to the three Ss: sulkiness, sullenness, and surliness.  We employ these three out of resentment that life is not what we feel it should be according to what is fair and just in relation to ‘ME’.

p19, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

A good horse which can be ridden with joy

rLung is the wind principle – which is powerful and direct.  rTa means horse – the energy which can be ridden.  rLung rTa is a sophisticated energy. which is clean, decent, honest, honourable, and committed – a good horse which can be ridden with joy.  The situation resplendent with rising rLung rTa is fresh and exuberant – but only eminently rideable once you have mucked out, groomed thoroughly, and cared for the tack with assiduous patience.               

p197, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Self-sustainingly cheerful

rLung rTa is the cheerful uplifting quality which resides as a natural aspect of our lives.  One could define it as authentic existential appreciation.  It is spontaneously present and self-created as an aspect of awareness.  When rLung rTa is present—or if we wish to encourage rLung rTa—we give phenomena the attention they deserve.  

p197, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Likes and dislikes

We feel it is important for people to be open and forthright about their subjectivity – and at the same time to acknowledge their subjectivity as being just that: subjectivity.  If you regard your likes and dislikes as subjective, there is never any clash with another person – no matter how strongly worded your like or dislike happen to be.

p192, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Karma

Karma is pattern.  Karma is the pattern through which we apprehend our existential / experiential environment.  Karma evaporates as soon as we see the pattern.

p60, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The meaning of ‘accident’

The Nyingma are indeed called ‘the accident lineage’, but not because they are accident prone.  The meaning of ‘accident’ is more concerned with working with chaos than surviving calamity.  The nature of reality is the dance of chaos and order.  Order arises out of chaos and dissolves back into chaos—and this is why Nyingmas are not overly concerned with establishing institutions.

p7, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The interface with the sense fields

The arts are bodhicitta.  The connection is quite clear; especially when you look at the level of humanitarianism among artists.  Beyond that however, one has the interface with the sense fields as the arena in which bodhicitta communicates.

p176, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

An entire gestalt

Naming moments of inspiration as Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyel is not a question of conceptualisation for a practitioner because Padmasanbhava and Yeshé Tsogyel are not concepts,  They are an entire gestalt, which is both conceptual and non-conceptual.

p166-167, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

Active compassion

Active compassion, changchub sem (byang chub sems—or bodhicitta), could be expressed as: appreciative empathetic appreciation.  The term changchub sem is vast, subtle, and infinitesimally varied in its meaning, according to the endless permutations of sentience dancing with phenomenal reality.

p114, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

The mechanism of samsara

We do not get stuck in reference points.  We create them and suffer as they collapse and cease to be reference points.  All you can do is ‘be as open as possible to all possibilities’ whilst observing the mechanism of samsara as you play it out.

p81, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

 

Fleeting glimpse

We say ‘only a nyam’ because a nyam is not the nondual state, but one can experience the nondual state momentarily, and the afterglow of that is called a nyam.  This does not detract from there having been a fleeting glimpse of the nondual state.

p87, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7  

Change the world

We can definitely change the world – but the problem is that we often seem unable to smile.  When chaos manifests in our lives we can smile – which is the cure for resentful confusion. 

p241, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7