Communicating with dignity

When it can take as long to spell out an acronym or letterisation in speech – there is more dignity in using the words the initials represent.  A Vajrayana practitioner needs to communicate with dignity – because Mind, Speech, and Body need to be the focus of practice in every arena of life.

p56, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Obsession

I'd succeeded and failed simultaneously.  The failure?  That was obvious – but what of the success?  That comprised of my having had the single pointed intention to do what I had done.  I'd carried through with a plan.  I'd not given up.  That was important for a Buddhist practitioner.  The lengths to which obsession carries a person, in terms of activity, is the mark of someone who stands the chance of realising goals in Buddhism. 

p75, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2

Practitioners practice

"Practitioners practice. It is what they do. Sometimes it may feel that there is no point in sitting today, and then again tomorrow, and the next day...and the next...It is meaningful even when it feels meaningless because it sustains you as a practitioner."

p.154, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

Courage to dance with the tension

"Vajrayana requires the courage to dance with the tension of the moment-of not knowing the who, what, why or how of that moment. You have to let go of always trying to control yourself and your situation, and leap into the present moment."

p.204, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nord'dzin and Ngakpa ö-Dzin

If one considers oneself to be a Vajrayana practitioner

"A teaching on Seven Line Song is only valuable if it is seen to be valuable. It cannot be seen as being valuable outside the context of Vajrayana practice. If one considers oneself to be a Vajrayana practitioner, then Dorje Tsigdun will have a depth of felt importance before a word of teaching has been uttered. This is important, because if one has the right attitude it is even possible to gain some further understanding of Dorje Tsigdun from a deranged dolt like Ngakpa Chögyam. There are some aspects of this teaching which may appear simple or quite meaningless, if they are not understood through the emotional charge of devotion. You could try to hear this teaching in the ambience of the devotion you feel for your own Lamas and the traditions they hold."

Seven Line Song, Ngak'chang Rinpoche, Aro Encyclopaedia

Tasting the fruits of practice

"It is not possible to taste the fruits of Buddhist practice without fully engaging with its radical horticulture." 

p11, Spacious Passion , Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-07-9

The hell of being a practitioner

"The hell of being a practitioner is the state in which we begin to see our neuroses and yet we continue to afflict ourselves with them"

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