Illusion and reality

The play of experience which arises in a mirror is the key to understanding the nature of illusion and reality.  Just as waking and sleeping can be a seamless flow of awareness – so can birth and death.

p48, 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

We may continue to see our students or not

It is good to make friends with death.  Whenever the plane takes off, we recite Yeshé Tsogyel mantra.  Whenever the plane lands, we recite Vajra Guru mantra.  This is not for protection or a ‘thank you’ for the protection – but as the recognition that we may continue to see our students or not.

p169, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

The illusion of continuity

Every moment is death. Every moment is birth. Death and birth flicker as cinematographic film flickers – and gives the illusion of continuity.

p198, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Eventual death

Falling in love—if it is authentic love—betokens the eventual death of the ‘me project’.

p75, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

We have to let go of what we are

Dying means letting go of self-image and self-conception.  We have to let go of what we are and open ourselves to what we can un-become.  From a Buddhist point of view it is unbecoming not to un-become.  In order to un-become, we must let go of security and find the security of insecurity.  We must discover the freedom of insecurity in which security and insecurity dance as nondual display.  If we cannot let our past preconceptions die we have no future, and cannot experience the present.  Unless we can die, we cannot be alive in the moment – and the moment is all we ever have.

p87, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

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 

Simple, blunt, uncompromising

When we commit ourselves to practice and to opening, we commit ourselves to change – and when we change, we die.  We have to die in order to change.  If we cannot die we cannot change.  This is a simple, blunt, uncompromising statement of fact. 

p87, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Every moment we live ...

If practice is a strong priority we should avoid weakening it by letting our other priorities contend with it.  So we should just sit.  When we get home, we should just sit.  We should sit again tomorrow morning and continue sitting in that way.  Every time we sit should be the first time, and every moment we live should be the last moment.  Remember to make friends with death, and let present sensations flow like sand through your fingers.

p143, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7 

One has to die

"In order to have some apprehension of what death is, one has to die ...we have to discover the moment of death every day. "

The Nine Bardos,Ngak'chang Rinpoche, Aro Encyclopaedia

Death

"Everything has to die in order to be born in the next moment and to experience it fully."

The Nine Bardos of the Aro gTér, Ngak’chang Rinpoche, Aro Encyclopaedia

The joy of being

"Impermanence and death are the joy of being. Impermanence and death are the continuity of existence"

p113, Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2009, 978-1-898185-07-9

Death

"Only through the death of one moment can the next moment arise"

p18, Moving Being, Khandro Déchen, Aro Books worldwide, 2009, 978-1-898185-05-5

Starting Over

"We imagine that we are the same person simply getting older. That is also a fantasy. Every moment is just like starting over."

p223, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, 978-0-9653948-5-7