Taking responsibility for being ‘the one who makes the first move’

  As an awakened-mind warrior, one takes responsibility for being ‘the one who has to forgive’. As an awakened-mind warrior, one takes responsibility for being ‘the one who makes the first move towards better relationships.’ As an awakened-mind warrior, one takes responsibility for being ‘the one who does not become angry in the face of those who are locked in neurotic patterns’.

A mother forgives the child who drops his dinner on the floor. She acknowledges her child’s incapacities. Her generosity provides instantaneous forgiveness. Her generosity provides opportunities for her child to acquire greater motor skills.
In this way the awakened-mind warrior develops infinite generous capacity to act for the benefit of everyone and everything, everywhere.

Aro Buddhism: Generosity - a teaching by Khandro Déchen

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

The Aro gTér

As it is

"Simply allowing experience to be as it is – is possible for us at any moment. We need only drop preconceptions of who we are, what we want, and how we are going to get it. Enlightenment is thus possible for everyone. Allowing experience to be as it is – is simple in theory – but it is not always easy to know where to begin."

an-uncommon-perspective, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Singing power into being

"The sounds of the vulture’s flight are methods of practice. The great white vulture, glides effortlessly above the reach and range of concept. Through these movements, Mind finds itself in its own free Space. The vulture has no fear of terrible heights, because the sky is her natural home.”

retreats/singing-power-into-being, Khandro Déchen

The Song of the Owl Headed Dakini

"Dharma never tires of explaining itself through those committed to teaching. To everyone who has questions or incomprehension, Dharma re-clothes itself in fresh terms. No book of truth can contain Dharma – because Dharma speaks to every style of confusion; and the styles of confusion are as variegated as the cultures, societies, and epochs in which we live. The Song of the Owl Headed Dakini is a stirring anthem to freedom and to the sheer glee evoked by direct insight into the nature of reality.”

the-song-of-the-owl-headed-dakini, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Our view

"We see our circumstances, not simply as an open environment – but in terms of how we can manipulate them as the project managers of our lives. We want some things, reject others, and the rest merges into the wallpaper of comfortable oblivion. This causes us to scurry around in a constant attempt to make the world conform to the preferences prompted by our conditioning."

an-uncommon-perspective, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Enlightenment

"The energy expended on worrying about the future, regretting the past, and judging the present is liberated – and we find tremendous resources of generosity, accuracy, vitality, creativity, and spaciousness – the natural freedom that is of benefit to all. Buddhism describes this as enlightenment."

an-uncommon-perspective, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

As it is

"When we allow our emotional realm to be as it is, we are freed to experience the texture of life directly. We can side-step the sour orthodoxy of preordained likes, dislikes, and habitual concepts. When we allow our perceptual life to be as it is, we are self-liberated to be as we are."

an-uncommon-perspective, Ngak'chang Rinpoche

The pleasure of existence