Anything might lurch out from nothingness

In terms of the sensory fear of emptiness, such as fear of silence, the fear is not based on isolation but on what may be lurking in the silence. Remember that the root misconception of the air element is groundless anxiety. 

p217, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

Sensing

The fundamental genius of Tantra is that the sense fields are interconnected. You can feel with your mind and think with your nose.

p216, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

No limit

With awareness and kindness there is no limit to the possibilities available in terms of being human.

p114, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

The death of any spiritual culture

Sectarianism and bigotry betoken the death of any spiritual culture; even if‚ ironically‚these activities are motivated by the wish to preserve these traditions. 

p113, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Failure and success

If your sense of existence doesn’t depend on anything, then failure and success can be simple failure and simple success.  When failure doesn’t threaten you, then it’s just failure.  You might even be able to laugh about it!

p98, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Owning what we feel

We cannot blame anyone or anything for how we feel.  Owning what we feel is actually a very useful practice – but that’s not to say that we’ll always find it easy.  

p198, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

A spring-board

Anything that is done with a compassionate intention is valuable.  Also, anything that concerns the experience of a broader frame of human reference has the possibility of providing a spring-board, or an approach to realisation.

p200, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

Cutting through conditioning

Every time you try to stare into the face of an arising emotion, you confirm yourself in the practice of cutting through conditioning.  Even wanting to start is a success.  If you begin to practice you will experience a difference in your life.  The ultimate goal is always both very close and very distant; and when one day you come to realise that the path is the goal, the concepts of failure and success will no longer have any meaning.

p242, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Sudden glimpses

There is no sudden breakthrough that remains forever – there are only sudden glimpses.  But the glimpses encourage us to see more until, gradually, we develop the ability to integrate these experiences of unconditioned being with the rest of our life.  The process of being total in the moment enables us to embrace our emotions; and, through doing so, to discover our beginningless enlightened nature.

 p241, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Ecstatic sensation

When you can simply be with the sensation of your emotion and experience it fully at the non-conceptual level, you will notice a dynamic reversal taking place.  The spinning energy that seemed to be generating rivulets of words and ideas has a vast still centre: like the eye of a hurricane.  From that experience of stillness it is possible to perceive that the obsessive spinning is not caused by the emotional sensation, but that it is in fact the cause of it.  When you realise the empty nature of the emotional pain, the pain dissolves into an ecstatic sensation of presence and awareness.   

p240, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Free energy

To relinquish analysis allows you to stare directly into the face of an arising emotion.  You can accomplish this by focusing on the physical sensation of the emotion as the subject/object of meditation.  Your whole field of attention needs to be immersed in the wordless sensation of the emotion as it manifests in the body.  If you can maintain the presence of your wordless gaze, the emotion becomes a free energy.

p240, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

You can feel with your mind and think with your nose

What is it like to look at a mountain, or a cherry?  What is it like to hear bird-song?  What is it like to feel velvet?  Is this a one-way process – or is this, in some inexpressible way, a communication?  You see, the intellect is a sense field.  You don't have to understand everything through that one sense field.  The fundamental genius of Tantra is that the sense fields are interconnected.  You can feel with your mind and think with your nose.  

 p216, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

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

How we feel

If you allow yourself to get caught up in the idea that your pain has been caused by somebody else, you may feel you have to throw a tantrum.  People get into some terrible difficulties over this, and act in ways that only make their situation worse.  Rejecting responsibility for feeling as we do spawns jealousy, bitterness, resentment, recrimination and vengefulness.  Rejecting responsibility for how we feel has never created the causes for pleasure, enjoyment or emotional fulfilment. 

p91, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

The style of our responses

We cannot be responsible for many things.  But we are all responsible for how we feel about the things that happen to us.  To embrace our emotions as the path, we must take responsibility for the style of our responses.    

p91, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Our own responsibility

The development of clarity arises from our growing awareness of the natural spaciousness of being.  With growing clarity, the life problems that occur cease to manifest so painfully.  We no longer add to their intensity as an automatic reflex.  Ultimately, our lives are our own responsibility.  Our problems are for us to work through.  There is no use in blaming the state of our lives on anybody else.  

p90, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

All our plans and efforts

With the discovery of experiential space we can let go of the emotional investment we put into all our plans and efforts.  Things actually become easier when we allow ourselves to play with our situation, rather than having to take it totally seriously.  The lightness of this approach is a manifestation of our developing clarity.

p90, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Fertile field of learning

Unless we embrace the monastic life, we have to work with the richness of the dualistic condition in all its complexity: monochromatic boredom and technicolour excitement; joy and sorrow; decisions and dilemmas; set-backs and exultations; misfortunes and rewards.  It is a fantastically fertile field of learning but we have to find the experiential space in which we can pursue plans very lightly; and, with a pronounced sense of humour.  

p89-90, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

A ‘dangerous’ game

Creating conducive circumstances, for ourselves and others, involves planning and making efforts which in many respects is a ‘dangerous’ game.  Plans can be made and plans can fall apart, but that is no reason not to make plans.  The failure and success of plans simply gives us an opportunity to experience failure and success as the ornaments of equanimity.  If we have some sense of space, this is a distinct possibility.  

p89, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8