An apparitional array

The elemental neuroses do not have to be obliviated – they could remain as an apparitional array. They could manifest as vajra appetetite, vajra alertness, vajra appreciation, vajra cynicism, and vajra composure.

p240, 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  

Love radiates

The love which radiates from our primordial natural state cannot help but sparkle through – no matter how insecure, frightened, isolated, anxious, or bewildered we become.

p242, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4  

Observe the play

‘Your neuroses’ are not separate from the ‘you who wants to destroy your neuroses’.  As long as you cling to that bifurcation—non-dual realisation will elude you.  You have to accept the entire situation or it can never be transformed—let alone self-liberated.  This situation is all we have—and there is actually no other way to proceed.  We have to celebrate the situation as it presents itself—and simply, wordlessly, observe the play.

p170, 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

Cutting through the mountain of our mental distortions and neurotic mind-states.

Practising meditation on your own with only yourself as a guide could be compared to wearing away a rock with water from a gentle stream – the water will erode the rock, but it will take a long time to have any great effect and the effect may lack focus.  Becoming part of a spiritual tradition and working with a teacher is like turning our gentle stream of spiritual practice into a powerful, focused, torrent that will quickly cut through the mountain of our mental distortions and neurotic mind-states.

p151,  Relaxing into Meditation   Ngakma Nor'dzin,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2010, ISBN 978-1-898185-17-8 

Humour and the hell of being a practitioner

The hell of being a practitioner is the state in which we begin to see through our neuroses, and yet we continue to afflict ourselves with them.
It can only stop through clarity and, to have clarity develop, we need humour.  We have to accept that we are both the dyed-in-the-wool neurotic and the practitioner who is trying to let neuroses go.  That is comical and we have to be fairly light-hearted about it.  With sufficient humour, we can simply be the space that lets these two lunatics dance.

p78-79, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Neuroses

"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'"

Compassion, Ngak'chang Rinpoche, Aro Encyclopaedia