It’s inexhaustible

So not to become jaded is simply to appreciate what is there. Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche said that when you appreciate what is there—you find that it’s inexhaustible. You cannot become jaded when you authentically enjoy anything.  

p326, Warp and Weft of Wonderment, Ngakma Mé-tsal, Aro Books Worldwide, 2024, ISBN 9781898185680

Expression and dissolution

If there was no natural passionately responsive appreciation – it could not arise in response to the Lama, as devotion. If appearances were not intrinsic to emptiness – they could not express themselves, as phenomena. If emptiness was not innate – there could be no display of the dissolution of phenomena.

p251, 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

The time is now

So, the time to appreciate anyone is now. It’s not tomorrow. It’s not next week – or with some idea that you'll meet them again in another life. The time is now and the next life is tomorrow.  

p108, Warp and Weft of Wonderment, Ngakma Mé-tsal, Aro Books Worldwide, 2024, ISBN 9781898185680

Programmed by society

 

What does that mean about my appreciative sense? Is my appreciation actually personal to me? Or am I simply programmed by society to like what I like? Most people are conditioned.

p214, Warp and Weft of Wonderment, Ngakma Mé-tsal, Aro Books Worldwide, 2024, ISBN 9781898185680

Cavort with reality

To be an artist one simply maintains the endeavour. One’s senses have to cavort with reality – and that voluptuous liaison has to become a dynamic aspect of one’s experience of appreciation. 

p316, 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

Wind horse

rLung rTa—wind horse—is appreciative vitality, in which the appreciation and vitality incite each other.

p340, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Individuality

Individuality is not a frequently used word in Himalayan Buddhism – because it is important to undermine the need to adhere to a fixed identity.  Authentic individuality however, is simply the discovery of authentic appreciation.  If one discovers authentic appreciation – one becomes unique.

p297, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4  

Before we begin

There is nothing to change before we begin.  Where we are, is where we begin.  This is not in order to change how we are – but simply to release how we are into the dimension of actively appreciative empathy.

p187, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4  

Prejudice to appreciation

From the perspective of the visionary practices of Vajrayana we become able to transform every aspect of prejudice against otherness in terms of vibrant appreciation.

p398, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Enjoying their presence

Kindness is inseparable from appreciation and enjoyment.  If one likes people, one will be kind in relation to them.  One cannot like people without appreciating them – without enjoying their presence.

p67, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Active compassion

Active compassion, changchub sem (byang chub sems—or bodhicitta), could be expressed as: appreciative empathetic appreciation.  The term changchub sem is vast, subtle, and infinitesimally varied in its meaning, according to the endless permutations of sentience dancing with phenomenal reality.

p114, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

Natural dignity

Warriorship is concerned with the development of dignity – our natural dignity.  Dignity only exists when our sense of appreciation is allowed to be as expansive as it inherently is.  This dignity and appreciation are innate – as is the ethos of Ling Gésar.  If we drop our overweening caution we begin to see whole situations unfolding – and in those situations we know exactly what is demanded of us.

p142-143, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7   

Authentic existential appreciation

rLung rTa is the cheerful uplifting quality which resides as a natural aspect of our lives.  One could define it as authentic existential appreciation.  It is spontaneously present and self-created as an aspect of awareness.  When rLung rTa is present—or if we wish to encourage rLung rTa—we give phenomena the attention they deserve.

p197, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Each Mind-moment

Ecstatic appreciation of every moment of experience is simply what happens when we give up on our attempts to create reality according to the banal dictates of security.  When I say that “the texture of whatever happens is, in itself, the implicit meaning of every Mind-moment”, there is the sense in which each Mind-moment is, in it’s nakedness, the state of enlightenment.

p209, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

The nature of attraction

     We attract each other through evidence of our liberated potential – and this is visible to varying degrees, according to the spectrum of appreciation which our lives portray:
The more naturally we express what we are – the more relaxed we are with our capacities and capabilities.  The more unaffectedly we articulate what we are – the less we engage in artifice.  The more unpretentiously we convey what we are – the less we concern ourselves with the projection of a calculated persona.  The more we abandon the need to make demands of arising situations – the more open we are to the mysterious arising of khandro-pawo mirroring.

p150, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Men and women need greater respect & appreciation for each other

  
Family environments which exemplify kindness, openness and an enthusiasm for life, are needed for there to be peace and harmony in the world.  For these qualities to exist as examples for children, men and women need greater respect & appreciation for each other.  The Aro gTér provides insight and methodology which are directly applicable to this need.

Ngak’chang Rinpoche & Khandro Déchen, Lineage holders of the Aro gTér, on Drala Jong: A Buddhist retreat Centre in Wales
 

Passion beyond passion

We see desire as an important aspect of the path.  Without desire there is no compassion, as desire is the energy of appreciative communication.  This is not spoken of in Sutrayana or the outer tantras.  From Mahayoga onward – desire is fuel for the fire of discriminating insight.  Desire is the passion beyond passion: compassion.  It was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche who first described compassion as ‘the passion beyond passion’.  From an inner tantra point of view, lust is simply the dualized form of the appreciative communication of bodhicitta.

p50, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

  

Discover the pleasure of existence

   The name ‘Drala Jong’ means ‘Sparkling Meadow of Primal Iridescence’.  Of this name,  Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen write:

Drala Jong innately exists in human beings.  ‘Drala’ is the appreciative faculty which exponentially enlivens people the more they engage with the world.  Appreciation is the key to enjoyment and to delighting in the enjoyment of others.  When we learn to appreciate phenomena our sense fields ‘Jong’, begin to sparkle, and a sense of generosity is born which connects us with others.  Although Vajrayana Buddhism is by no means unknown in the West – the sense in which enjoyment and compassion are mutually interdependent remains unexpressed.  We would like Drala Jong to be a place where human beings could discover the pleasure of existence – the pleasure that animates the sense fields and revitalises the Arts – and the art of living.

Drala-Jong.org: Sparkling Meadow of Primal Iridescence Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen

Not quite the species of Buddhist you might imagine

  “You’re quite the bon vivant for a Buddhist” Rebecca observed.
Somehow I often understood these French usages by guess work and so I was able to reply without seeming too gauche “I'm maybe not quite the species of Buddhist you might imagine. I don’t belong to a monastic tradition you see...”
“Ah...that’s...a very welcome idea.”
“Yes...I thought so...” I grinned “...my teachers are all family people...”
“Really...?” Meryl queried. “So...it’s not about austerity and abjuring pleasure?”
“No...especially not pleasure – it’s more geared to maximising pleasure through appreciation of the widest possible spectrum of  phenomena – and, encouraging that in everyone and everything everywhere...”

p110, An Odd Boy Volume 4, Doc Togden,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2017, ISBN 978-1-898185-42-0

Devotion

As far as I'm concerned devotion isn't measured in terms of empowerments or anything that can be added to your spiritual credit rating.  Devotion is direct understanding – and that never has any need of being displayed.  In spiritual terms this could sound too subtle, too abstruse to understand – but the same phenomenon exists in the world of the Arts.  Almost anyone can enjoy world-class music – but only a proficient musician can know the worth of a world-class musician.  The greater your musical ability the more astonishing a master-musician becomes. 
JS Bach is a composer of marvellously intricate sonic adventures – until you learn something about contrapuntal composition.  Then you gasp.  Jack Bruce said “Bach was my greatest bass teacher”.  So . . . Bach isn’t some dim and distant figure.  Bach is alive and well – and his compositions are as fresh as the present moment.  I'd describe that statement as ‘devotion’ – the gasp born of the inseparable nature of developed musical knowledge and critically inspired appreciation. 

p19, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.  
Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4