No limit

With awareness and kindness there is no limit to the possibilities available in terms of being human.

p114, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

It is there in the target

Target practice—with bow, rifle, or hand gun—is a valuable way of taking awareness into the physical dimension. One sees the proof of one’s ability to be present and undistracted. It is there in the target. 

p151, 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

Empty pleasure

It’s not—my—attention. It’s simply attention. One is unselfconscious in respect of attention.  And with empty pleasure it’s the same.  Non-referential awareness of pleasure.

p391, Warp and Weft of Wonderment, Ngakma Mé-tsal, Aro Books Worldwide, 2024, ISBN 9781898185680

Illusion and reality

The play of experience which arises in a mirror is the key to understanding the nature of illusion and reality.  Just as waking and sleeping can be a seamless flow of awareness – so can birth and death.

p48, 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

A radical change

When we can enter into a condition without thought and remain present and awake in that experience for extended periods of time – we know that the relationship with thought has undergone a radical change. 

p51, 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 

Consciousness and awareness

The aspect of mind which is conscious of something, is a discontinuous consciousness – whereas awareness is continuous.

p264, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Like the sky

Awareness is like the sky.  Consciousness is like a bird in the sky.  Birds fly into sight and out of sight.  If one concentrates on the movement of birds, one will lose concentration repeatedly. 

p264, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

No one watching

It only becomes interesting when ‘nothing’ happens – when there’s nothing with no one watching nothing.  That’s what it takes to allow awareness to be what it is.  Our natural awareness only becomes evident when we let the structure of conceptual mind drop – and … it’s a long process because the habit of conceptual mind is well entrenched.  

p194, Goodbye Forever Vol. II, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2021, ISBN 978-1-898185-60-4

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

Love what you wear

Our perspective on clothing is essentially concerned with promoting awareness and impeccability.  The principle is one of dynamic engagement with phenomena – as an aspect of pervasive bodhicitta.  You need to love what you wear in order to engage fully with being alive.  When you engage fully with being alive you shine as an example of joy to others. 

p191, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Ecstatic sensation

When you can simply be with the sensation of your emotion and experience it fully at the non-conceptual level, you will notice a dynamic reversal taking place.  The spinning energy that seemed to be generating rivulets of words and ideas has a vast still centre: like the eye of a hurricane.  From that experience of stillness it is possible to perceive that the obsessive spinning is not caused by the emotional sensation, but that it is in fact the cause of it.  When you realise the empty nature of the emotional pain, the pain dissolves into an ecstatic sensation of presence and awareness.   

p240, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Mere indication

Mere indication means that something is suggested, and in that moment there is a whole gestalt.  Mere indication however, in terms of transmission, means that one simply hears directly.  One’s stream of awareness is ‘seeded’ with this mere indication, and there is no more to do or to think.  It is perfect in that moment.  Then … all one has to do is allow that moment to remember itself.  

p31, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

The only perfect morality

   The only perfect morality is awareness.  The only perfect morality or ethical position is awareness, because all actions which spring from awareness are choiceless pure appropriateness.
Kindness is as close as we can ever come to a moral approximation of awareness.  Having a good heart goes further than anything in terms of empathising with the nondual state.  

p49, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

There‘s no guarantee at all

   The purpose of the teaching is not to improve outer conditions.  Although, I would say that living according to the Tantric view would actually enable you to get much more out of life than you would have done otherwise.  I would say that your life would be improved in many ways.  This may sound contradictory, but I think that there’s a significant point here: you cannot judge the teachings according to the criterion of whether your life has ‘improved’.  You can only judge the teachings against your own evolution of awareness and kindness.  If your outer circumstances improve then that’s wonderful, but it’s not a sign of your practice. The concept that spiritual practice, or success in spiritual practice, leads to a life in which things increasingly work out to your advantage, is highly spurious.

p200, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Naked awareness

   The need to continually confirm personal identity seems hard-wired – because there is a continually observable engagement in the activity of seeking existential assurances.  This is the dualistic penchant for unnecessarily clothing naked awareness in concepts. 
Non-duality is the state in which emptiness and form manifest as a seamless alternation in which each are aspects of the other – and have the same essential experiential flavour. 

p29, 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

Meditation as civil disobedience

Meditation is our only our weapon against the repressive regime of karma and it constitutes civil disobedience in the form of passive resistance.  By allowing the development of experiential space through the practice of shi-nè—according to the four naljors—we discover our own intrinsic awareness.  The four naljors of Dzogchen sem-dé are the ultimate crimes against the ‘law of karma’ and are punishable by realisation – the final revolution and overthrow of the legal system.

p53, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN 978-1-898185-06-2

The 'Law of Karma'

Awareness means relinquishing the police state of karmic-vision and assuming personal responsibility.  Karma is the sum total of our perception in all it’s excruciating intricacy.  The ‘Law of Karma’ is different from externally enforced societal law, because ‘karmic law’ is directly consequential and self-implementing.  We perceive the world in a certain way, and react to it in accordance with that style of perception.  This is what is meant by karma.  There’s no injustice in this kind of ‘law’ apart from the injustice to the non-dual state perpetrated by karmic patterning. 

p51, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN 978-1-898185-06-2

A certain sense of the magical about your existence

Kyil-khor is the living sense of being related with your environment – of being aware of the subtleties and nuances of your situation.  There is a certain sense of the magical about your existence when the principle of kyil-khor starts to apply at the level of your senses.  You begin to feel as if you’re actually alive!  The tree we’re sitting under is performing photosynthesis at this moment!  It has some sense of the earth.  We’re here at this moment, being attentive to all this – existing in the presence of everything that’s happening.  It has to do with climbing out of the cocoon of self-orientation.     
With kyil-khor there is both the sense in which everything can be seen as the radiance of our own awareness; and, the sense in which we simply participate in the radiance of everything else.

p80, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

A vibrant, creative state of awareness

Day dreaming is not conducive to discovering mind without thought, and the nature of this empty state may be misunderstood through believing that day dreaming is meditation.  In Letting Go we are not aiming for a dampened down, thought suppressed state.  Mind without thought is a vibrant, creative state of awareness.  It is vivid with an electric sense of being awake in the present moment.  Even momentary glimpses of this vibrant state will begin to open our experience of ourselves.

p139,  Relaxing into Meditation   Ngakma Nor'dzin,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2010, ISBN 978-1-898185-17-8 

We do not employ the term mindfulness

The word ‘mindfulness’ is not a bad translation of dranpa (dran pa—smriti in Sanskrit) but it is more accurately translated as ‘resting in recollection’.  Recollection does not mean thinking about a past event—but ‘being present with what has been received as teaching’.  The word ‘awareness’ is not an equivalent for ‘dranpa’ – because ‘awareness’ relates to rigpa or non-dual awareness.

p63-64, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7