Your own effort

"Awakening cannot be handed to you – the cause has to be created through your own effort. Through discovering the qualities of Padmasambhava by practising Dorje Tsig-dün, you can aspire to liberate the siddhis of Padmasambhava in yourself."

p.11, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nord'dzin and Ngakpa ö-Dzin

Establishing traditions

"I feel that we have to experiment a great deal with the interface between the Buddhist teachings and the social patterns of the West. I feel that the time is ripe for open ended discussions between different groups with widely diverging approaches. I feel that we need to allow everything to remain in flux as long as possible. We really don’t want to settle into a fixed form too quickly. The longer we remain open, the more chance we have of establishing traditions which really address the assortment of societal climates which exist."

Real opportunities for openness

"If you can let go of self protection; if you can admit to yourself your sense of vulnerability; if you can let go of the assumption that you know what the person in front of you is feeling or thinking — then you have real opportunities for openness and kindness."

p.184, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

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

Wrathful implements

"The weapons held by wrathful yidams destroy the illusion of dualism. There are swords, lances, axes, spears, flaying knives, daggers – a vast array. It is not that dualism has to be destroyed in all these different ways, simply that we all need different ways to destroy our individual illusions of duality. Our illusions take many different forms; so, paradoxically, many illusory methods are needed to destroy illusion. At the ultimate level, the weapons held by wrathful yidams all perform the same function; whether it is a spear, a lance, or a dagger – duality is murdered.."

nrp_ordination_ph_03_picture_eng.php,Ngak'chang Rinpoche, Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Encyclopaedia

Practice of kindness

"In our practice of kindness it is valuable not to speculate concerning the motivation of others. Voicing one’s personal criticisms of what we imagine to be the motivation of other individuals is merely the expression of subjectivity."

Kindness, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

The base

"The base, or starting point, of Buddhism is a nagging feeling that something about the way we live is subtly askew – and consequent curiosity about what else might be possible. It is not that there is something particularly wrong with life: dissatisfaction with jobs, marriages, or circumstances. On the one hand, we recognise that such situations can be improved with effort. On the other hand, it seems that no amount of improvement will resolve life completely. We may have experienced some successes, yet there seems to be something tenuous about them. A repeating cycle of identifying areas of dissatisfaction and fixing them is not a history upon which we would reminisce with relish." phases-of-aro, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Relating as the emptiness to the form of Tantra

"Yab-yum imagery is not telling us that we should be making love with the opposite sex. It is about the union of emptiness and form – concepts which are often seen as opposites but which are in reality in ecstatic union with each other. Tantric imagery arises in the minds of Enlightened Masters; and such imagery cannot be extrapolated, inferred, or logically deduced from what went before. We cannot re-invent Vajrayana according to our personal neurotic need to have the world mirror our form. To attempt to create yab-yab or yum-yum imagery on this basis would be patent nonsense. It is to misunderstand the whole point of Tantra; which is that we allow ourselves to relate as emptiness to the form of Tantra."

being-gay-practicing-tantra, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Hung

"Om A'a: Hung:The three syllables rain from the dimension of space — and the precipitation manifests as düd-tsi — a treasury of desirable qualities whose colour, taste, and fragrance are powerful."

p483 Wisdom Eccentrics, Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, Inc, 2011, 978-0965394864

Truth & Method

"Buddhism is not a religion of truth-it is a religion of method. Its teachings are not overly concerned with expressing truth-but with methods of practice. In a sense, one could actually say that there is only one 'truth' in Buddhism, that form and emptiness are nondual."

p.3, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

The sound of the birds

"If you hear the sound of the birds outside--if you really hear them--then you'll hear Guru Rinpoche's mantra. If you hear this way, you will know the results of the development and completion stages--and Dzogchen is possible."

p449 Wisdom Eccentrics, Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, Inc, 2011, 978-0965394864

Energy of emotion

"Your experience of sadness exploding into spaciousness could indeed be an experience of allowing the energy of the emotion to change of itself. The ‘connection’ between distracted and liberated emotion is simply the energy of as it is. In a dualistic, distorted relationship with energy, form is forced as an experience, ignoring emptiness. Energy does not change when you let go of manipulation, but your relationship with it changes - you are able to experience energy from the perspective of nonduality, you are able to experience the energy directly."

p.80, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

Dwell in the natural state

"Samsara exists because of duality. It can easily cease to exist in the moment through changing your view. Dwelling in the natural state would not mean that you lack the ability to act - your actions would be totally appropriate and compassionate. It is possible to be destructive where the situation requires it without this being out-of-control energy. It is possible to make a stand without justification and self protective posturing. To dwell in the natural state would be to be a Dharma warrior."

p.165, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nord'dzin and Ngakpa ö-Dzin

Karma

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