The inseparability of sameness and difference

In terms of emptiness – we are indeed all one.  Your emptiness.  My emptinesss.  The emptiness of everyone.  They are all ‘one’ in all being the same.  Emptiness however, is one aspect of reality.  The other aspect is form.  Form is that which continually arises from emptiness.  In terms of form, we are certainly not all one – we are all different.  Nonduality is the inseparability of this sameness and difference.

p25, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon 2nd edition, Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books, 2021, ISBN 978-0-9653948-7-1

The dramatic dimension of dance

Buddhist Tantra explores the nondual matrix of emptiness and form.  It delves into the dramatic dimension of dance.  When the nature of the dance is realised, extrication from the vast and subtle sexual embrace of each shining moment becomes unfeasible. 

p22, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon 2nd edition, Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books, 2021, ISBN 978-0-9653948-7-1  

The desire for happiness

Theories based on the desire for happiness would have us believe that anything is possible.  According to Vajrayana however, the desire for happiness is not concomitant with knowledge of the nature of happiness.  The desire for happiness and happiness itself are mutually exclusive within any dualistic paradigm.  This is due to the fact that attempting to achieve happiness is undertaken in a manner which undermines the possibility of attaining happiness. 

p15, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon 2nd edition, Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books, 2021, ISBN 978-0-9653948-7-1  

Beyond concepts of illusion

Vajrayana goes beyond concepts of ‘personal illusion’ and ‘group illusion’, into a space where the effect of entering the dimension of view is more important than whether the view is ‘hard wired’ in terms of the fundamental biochemical structure of human beings.  This, perhaps, is a paradoxical beginning – but when has the subject of romance ever been adequately described in terms of rationalism or scientific objectivity?

p11, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon 2nd edition, Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books, 2021, ISBN 978-0-9653948-7-1  

Intrinsic to human beings

Knowledge of Vajrayana is intrinsic to human beings – not in the sense of complex symbolism and elaborate colourful mystical motifs, but in the sense that Vajrayana is our condition.  Vajrayana is our condition, in the sense that Vajrayana 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 this reality.

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

Mere indication

Mere indication means that something is suggested, and in that moment there is a whole gestalt.  Mere indication however, in terms of transmission, means that one simply hears directly.  One’s stream of awareness is ‘seeded’ with this mere indication, and there is no more to do or to think.  It is perfect in that moment.  Then … all one has to do is allow that moment to remember itself.  

p31, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

The dance of emptiness and form

What then exists for those who are drawn to pursuit of realisation – but who remain unattracted by the option of detaching from ordinary everyday society?  What exists for those who experience spiritual value in their interaction with the world?  The answer is that Vajrayana exists – not necessarily the Vajrayana of liturgical recitation – but the essential Vajrayana, which expounds the dance of emptiness and form within every nuance of experience.

p44, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

Love is there

Love is there when the artificial divisions between us dissolve into the iridescent spectrum of our beginningless nature. The love which radiates from our primordial state cannot help but sparkle through – no matter how insecure, frightened, isolated, anxious, or bewildered we become.

p5, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

The natural relationship between all beings

We can only share the experience of love if we relinquish our definitions of who we are and what we propose to become. We become besotted with each other when circumstances align themselves in such a way that we catch glimpses of each other’s beginningless nondual being.  These glimpses are rays of light in the sky of our being. In these glimpses we see our own intrinsic nature reflected back. Our love for each other is a rapturous reflection of the love which exists as the natural relationship between all beings and all situations.

p4, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

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 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tantric sexuality

Tantric sexuality is a vast field of living knowledge in which coital union is infinitely modulated in terms of all the sense fields.
It voluptuates in: the soft silence of falling snow on bare branches; the succulent stickiness of budding twigs; the glorious unreserved unravelling of blossoms; and, the cool moist fire of autumnal foliage.  It is the art of the way in which the eye sees, and the poetry of the way in which the ear hears.  Eyesight penetrates visual phenomena, and is engulfed by the field of vision.  Hearing penetrates sound and is engulfed by the auditory dimension.  Every sense-perception and sense field performs, and is performed by, the same ecstatic dance.

p52, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Sexual embrace

Male and female qualities of existence are the play of reality itself.  They continually interpenetrate and inter-engulf each other as non-dual dance.  The tantric vision of reality is one in which sexuality is the meaning of every nuance of existence.  To see the colour of a bird’s plumage is to be in sexual embrace.  Listening to the bowed strings of a cello is to be in sexual embrace.  Inhaling the saline scent of sea air; savouring the taste of a heavily tannic wine; caressing the intriguing surface texture of a weathered stone; contemplating the delicate elaborations of a cognitive pattern; all these sensory communications are sexual embrace.  They are self-communicated communication – and they are continuously arising from and dissolving into emptiness.

p101, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3
 

Not having an opinion

It is often considered weak-minded not to have an opinion – but, from the perspective of practising emptiness, it might be considered weak-minded to be unable to resist forming an opinion. If the urge to establish an opinion can be resisted, the emptiness of simply not knowing can be formlessly investigated. There are many occasions in life where it might be valuable to recognise that there is insufficient information upon which an opinion could be based. This could be termed ‘the emptiness of open-mindedness’ or ‘the emptiness of having a certain level of information – but being able to resist compulsively establishing concrete conclusions’.

p52, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3