Active compassion

Each of the six classes of tantra expresses this appreciative interactive empathy according to progressively subtler and increasingly vivid criteria. We begin by cultivating compassion – only to learn that compassion – is none other than the innate energy of the natural state.

p133, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books Worldwide, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

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 

Integrity as practitioners

We don't have to drift according to the dictates of our conditioning.  We can move according to the dictates of wisdom and compassion.  We can allow our choices and promises to be adaptable according to our integrity as practitioners. 

p197, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Without acting out

One has to address one’s fear.  Fear can be an aspect of compassion in simply being with ‘what is there’.  One accepts the entire texture of what is is felt.  One feels it without acting out; lashing out; or, initiating a primitive bid for self-preservation.  

p116, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books Worldwide, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Honour

You need to keep agreements with yourself, and with others.  I think this is really fundamental.  You need to be able to stick to some course of action; to see it through in spite of difficult circumstances.  You need to be reliable.  You need to be form for others; rather than being emptiness for them.  That’s one meaning of compassion.

p192, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4  

Compassionate society

There is no guarantee that any conventional point of view can create a compassionate society.  Obsession with individual freedom at the expense of others is the death of compassion.  Obsession with neurotic parental concern at the expense of the personal liberty of others is the death of wisdom.

p217, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

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 

Playful as ever

Our relationship with the external Lama is the interplay of our nondual mind with the nondual mind of the Lama.  It is a Vajrayana game of ‘hide and seek’ in which the Lama is trying to persuade us that we are not dualistically deranged.  The game has been going on for so long that it should be tedious – but the Lama remains as playful as ever.  It is this playfulness that is known as compassion.

p97, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2 

Practitioners’ best friends

Khandro and pawo are the female sky-dancing and male warrior aspects of the nondual state.  We discover the khandro principle when we begin to discover our spaciousness.  We discover the pawo principle when we begin to discover our innate compassion.  The khandros and pawos are the circumstances of the path – practitioners’ best friends.

p99, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2    

The voltage of pure panic

The power of Tantra doesn’t go with wanting to be calm.  It goes with being willing to ride the voltage of pure panic!  In Tantra, we have some knowledge of the calm of ‘non-arising’ – the state without definitions; the state of emptiness.  So; when we recognise this state of emptiness, as the basis of what we are, we can then turn round and face phenomena with fierce compassion!  The spirit of heroism embraces the tumultuous flood of existence, in which: war and peace; calm and panic alternate – but, have the same intrinsic taste.

p16, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Vulnerability and freedom

   Shi-nè provides face-to-face experience with: insecurity, fear, loneliness, vulnerability, and bewilderment.  These underlying tensions are common to all – and create distortion whether or not shi-nè is practised.  Avoiding shi-nè is therefore not an answer.  Self-hidden vulnerabilities cause greater conflict in being hidden than in being exposed.  Clarity spontaneously arises from the discovery of openness within the practice of shi-nè.
Self-transparency manifests – and motivation becomes simpler in being seen nakedly.  A natural compassion arises – a compassion which does not need to be forced or fabricated.  This is the first real taste of freedom.

p25-26, 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

Passion beyond passion

We see desire as an important aspect of the path.  Without desire there is no compassion, as desire is the energy of appreciative communication.  This is not spoken of in Sutrayana or the outer tantras.  From Mahayoga onward – desire is fuel for the fire of discriminating insight.  Desire is the passion beyond passion: compassion.  It was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche who first described compassion as ‘the passion beyond passion’.  From an inner tantra point of view, lust is simply the dualized form of the appreciative communication of bodhicitta.

p50, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

  

The fabulous friction which illuminates our Buddha nature

Our entire assortment of wearying neuroses are related with all other beings.  All our wearying experiences are founded on our association with all sentient beings.  Without the sense of our practice being involved with the entire sentient situation, there is no compassion – and therefore no enlightenment.  Every detail of this ‘wearying world’—these seeming obstacles—are essential to realisation.  Without this ‘wearying world’ we cannot find enlightenment.  Without the responses we receive from our world, we would be bereft of the fabulous friction which illuminates our Buddha nature.  

p43, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The open-mindedness and kindness of lovers

The lover's open-mindedness equates with wisdom inasmuch as lovers cannot remain lovers if they become closed-minded with each other.
The lover's kindness equates with compassion inasmuch as lovers cannot remain lovers if they entertain the possibility of causing each other pain or distress.
Kindness is elicited by the kindness of one's lover, and one's own kindness achieves reciprocal responsiveness: kindness escalates and becomes addictive.  Through the self-orientation of our grasping, self-orientation loosens of itself, and dissolves within the fluidity of the needs perceived in one's lover.

p147, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

I can be the good person who is disapproving of the bad habit

The more you try to force thought out, the more of a problem it becomes.  The more you disapprove of your own neuroses, the more of a problem they become.  The time to disapprove of them is if they are hurting others; and then in the moment.  But one does not go into punishing oneself for having them at other times.  If one is aware that one has patterns, then one has to say, I need to have some awareness while this pattern is performing.  If I punish myself for having the pattern whilst I am having it, then this actually acts as a screen which hides the neurosis – I can be the good person who is disapproving of the bad habit.   That means I never get to see this habit, this neurosis, because I am too busy being the person who is disapproving of it.  This is actually a way of maintaining the neurosis.  The only way I see through a neurosis is to be with it. This is a great value of silent sitting.

Aro Encyclopaedia Index: Compassion - Questions and Answers.
Ngak'chang Rinpoche. 

Grinning at chaos

If your practice of shi-nè (letting go of addiction to thought) facilitates the experience of emptiness, it will also facilitate the capacity to grin at your own chaos—and if you can grin at your own chaos, then you will have authentic pervasive compassion for the chaos of existence.  You will discover your innate goodness and that will naturally pervade the world.  Primordial goodness is that which grins at the illusions of the dualistic predicament—so sit and learn to smile.

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

The difference between kindness and compassion

Compassion means more than simply being kind.  Compassion—or active compassion—is how we usually translate bodhicitta or changchub sem.  Compassion includes kindness, but kindness is but part of the spectrum of compassion.
Compassion includes appreciation, admiration, pleasure, wonder, enjoyment, and communication—fierce, florid, and fecund communication.
Compassion is openness to infinite pattern and to embodying any aspect of that pattern for the benefit of everyone, and everything, everywhere.

p130-131, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Simply being

"You have to address your own level of fear, and that is called compassion – simply being with ‘what is there’. Accepting the whole texture of what you feel without having to act out, or lash out in some primitive bid for self-preservation. We have to trust the texture of what is happening and relax with the ‘rip-tides’ of what we feel. If there’s some space, then that becomes possible. It’s a ride though... but if we reject ‘the ride’... we get ridden... and the spurs bite deep!."

kindness-and-compassion, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Kindness and compassion

"Kindness is where we start. Compassion means so much more, in a certain sense, than simply being kind. Compassion means kindness, but it also means communication – fierce, florid, and fecund communication. Compassion is openness to infinite pattern and to embodying any aspect of that pattern for the benefit of everyone, and everything, everywhere."

kindness-and-compassion, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Neurosis

"The more you try to force thought out, the more of a problem it becomes. The more you disapprove of your own neuroses, the more of a problem they become. The time to disapprove of them is if they are hurting others; and then in the moment. But one does not go into punishing oneself for having them at other times. If one is aware that one has patterns, then one has to say, I need to have some awareness while this pattern is performing. If I punish myself for having the pattern whilst I am having it, then this actually acts as a screen which hides the neurosis – I can be the good person who is disapproving of the bad habit. That means I never get to see this habit, this neurosis, because I am too busy being the person who is disapproving of it. This is actually a way of maintaining the neurosis."

Compassion, Ngak'chang Rinpoche, Aro Encyclopaedia