Through empowerment

We need to develop some workable sense of living the view before we can appreciate the nature of empowerment. In some sense living the view is a an advanced stance. It comes from deep experience of practice. But if you are open enough, empowerment can unlock this door. 

p212, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Authentic practice

Craft is authentic practice when it is successful. Success necessitates the development of integrity, honesty, scrupulousness, accuracy, authenticity, genuineness, and reverence. These qualities are as important to meditation as they are to craft.

p64, 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 

Herd mentality

“Seeing the fixed patterns of herd mentality is absolutely primary, in terms of Vajrayana” Rinpoche concluded. “Undermining it, in oneself, is probably one of the major practices.”

p92, Warp and Weft of Wonderment, Ngakma Mé-tsal, Aro Books Worldwide, 2024, ISBN 9781898185680

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

Bewilderment and wonderment

We oscillate between bewilderment and wonderment, and practice allows us to experience a space where duality and non-duality begin to flicker.

p224, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The fruit of any practice

The fruit or result of any practice cannot actually be practised as such, because the end result of anything is theoretically a position of stasis.  One can make a journey and arrive at a destination – but having arrived at one’s destination, all that can be said is that one ‘enjoys being there’.   

p74, 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 

For practice to mean anything

For practice to mean anything, one has to change for the better.  One has to be free—or freer—from habitual responses such as territorial avarice, petulance, selfishness, manipulativeness, and obdurate obfuscatory self-protectiveness. 

p19, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Out of the state of emptiness

After you’ve received empowerment into the practice of a particular awareness-being or yidam, the form of this awareness-being will spontaneously arise out of the state of emptiness when you engage in practice.  Your experience of emptiness is the oven where the bread of vision bakes itself. 

p116, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Mind discovers itself

The sounds of the vulture’s flight are the methods of practice.  The great white vulture glides effortlessly above the range and reach of concept.  Through these movements, Mind discovers itself in the inherently free space of being.  The vulture has no fear of terrible heights – because the sky is her natural home.

p139, 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 do not flinch

When feeling intense sorrow at images of people suffering, know that your practice will help.  As warriors, we do not flinch from the horrors of life circumstances.  We face them, experience the horror and transform the feeling of being overwhelmed into ubiquitous intelligence.  The warrior does not retract into indifference, or kid themselves that putting 50p in a charity box has fulfilled their responsibility.  The warrior practices wholeheartedly and energetically to be of benefit to others.

p227, Spacious Passion Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books, 2006 ISBN: 978-0-9653948-4-0 

Everything seems to fall apart

Our lives do seem to go through phases when there is more emptiness.  Everything trundles along nicely for a while and then suddenly everything seems to fall apart.  Emptiness happens.  Do not read significance into this – it is just what is happening now.  Recognising this emptiness and attempting to relax with it is heroic.  This is practice.

p188, Illusory Advice Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books, 2015, ISBN: 978-1898185-37-6 

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

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

Abandon inhibition

Facing yourself in terms of Vajrayana means acknowledging the worst and being prepared—immediately—to work with that as the basis of practice.  Once we decide simply to see what is there – we might see ourselves as pitiful specimens.  We might simultaneously see ourselves as fortunate.  A Vajrayana practitioner will naturally have talents as well as handicaps.  The important factor is being able to abandon inhibition.  The major inhibition is self-image. 

p153, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Life teaches us moment by moment

    Everyday we are presented with opportunities to expand our hearts and disinhibit our innate kindness.  Everyday life is also the perfect place to observe how we are, because life teaches us moment by moment – whatever we feel in response to anything shows us the pattern of our perception.  In this way, if we are open enough and are honest with ourselves, we can learn a great deal about the way our energies are constricted.

p67, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Whatever the consequences

   To hold to your word whatever the consequences would be about the strongest basis for the practice of Tantra.  I would also say that making a practice of keeping your word in this way would change your life significantly – the fabric of your existence would become Tantra; you would actually start to live that!  

p193, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

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 

Trust

The trust I'm speaking of here is not trust in someone or something.  I am simply talking about trust; your own sense of knowing what you’re doing at a very fundamental level.  This is trusting your own intrinsic goodness.  This is the trust from which you can act on the basis of not knowing.  You have some kind of hunch, some kind of intuition which isn’t simply based on wishful thinking.  The trust is based on the experience of practice, and arises out of the very sane ability to be insane when the chips are down.
 p207-208, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

A Vicar of Vajrayana

  There is no area of life that is ever separate from practice; whether we’re in a business meeting with the board, eating paella and drinking Prosecco with friends, roaring with laughter at a bad joke, hang gliding across the Grand Canyon, walking in the wind with the hounds on the hill, singing the blues, stringing beans, or attending a dying friend. Whether we’re on the bus, on the stage, or on the run, on a roll, on the mend, or on the make, on the toilet, on the edge, or on our last legs and last breath . . . there is nothing but practice. The essential practice of recognizing the one taste of emptiness and form, of wisdom and compassion, of manifesting the non-dual play of our awareness and kindness at all times.

 

Drala-Jong.org: A Vicar of Vajrayana Ngakma Mé-tsal Wangmo
Excerpt from an article published in the magazine Buddhist Door Global 2018.

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