Paradox

Happiness is a matter of finding security in insecurity.  This is because whatever security occurs in life, is temporary.  If you can find security in the temporary nature of phenomena, then that makes you permanently secure.  That’s known as paradox.  It’s the logic of Vajrayana.

p43, 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

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

Confusion

No one enjoys confusion, but as long as we cling to our dualistic vision, we will always translate not knowing as ‘confusion’.  We don’t like confusion because within the space of confusion definitions become vague and intangible.  That makes us feel insecure.  Accepting or relaxing in that insecurity is in itself a practice. 


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

Security

"The only truly stable ground we can find is emptiness. It is only possible to find security in insecurity - by establishing insecurity as security"

p130, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, 0-9653948-0-8