Dance

We need to arrive at a sense in which we can simply flow with the multiplicity of definitions that reality manifests.  There can be some sense of dance there, in which we swim with these currents and relax in these pools of stillness.  Tantra introduces us to the one taste of emptiness and form.

p34, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

 

Dance with the situation

The dance costume of Vajrayana is demanding in terms of personal responsibility, integrity, and honour.  One can don the costume and enter the dance – but to sustain the dance throughout one’s life requires a degree of familiarity with the pattern of motivation.  Life resembles dance – and a piece of advice which Trungpa Rinpoche gave was to ‘dance with the situation’.

p42, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Allow the senses to dance

Allow the sense-fields to be as they are.  Allow the senses to dance with the sense-fields.  That, in itself, is the meditative state.  Every artist will understand that experientially – even if they know nothing of meditation.

p200, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4  

Effortlessness

Pure appropriateness is an invisible dance in which one is transparent in terms of what is taking place.  there is an effortlessness that is not even named or differentiated from effort.

p237, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Every experience

The khandros and pawos are our environment: the earth, water, fire, air, and space which manifest as the conditions in which we find ourselves.  When we realise that the entire phenomenal world is the dance of the khandros and pawos – every experience becomes a teaching.  Every experience becomes the possibility for liberation. 

 p99, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2 

The dramatic dimension of dance

Buddhist Tantra explores the nondual matrix of emptiness and form.  It delves into the dramatic dimension of dance.  When the nature of the dance is realised, extrication from the vast and subtle sexual embrace of each shining moment becomes unfeasible. 

p22, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon 2nd edition, Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam,  Aro Books, 2021, ISBN 978-0-9653948-7-1  

The dance of emptiness and form

What then exists for those who are drawn to pursuit of realisation – but who remain unattracted by the option of detaching from ordinary everyday society?  What exists for those who experience spiritual value in their interaction with the world?  The answer is that Vajrayana exists – not necessarily the Vajrayana of liturgical recitation – but the essential Vajrayana, which expounds the dance of emptiness and form within every nuance of experience.

p44, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

We have to let go of what we are

Dying means letting go of self-image and self-conception.  We have to let go of what we are and open ourselves to what we can un-become.  From a Buddhist point of view it is unbecoming not to un-become.  In order to un-become, we must let go of security and find the security of insecurity.  We must discover the freedom of insecurity in which security and insecurity dance as nondual display.  If we cannot let our past preconceptions die we have no future, and cannot experience the present.  Unless we can die, we cannot be alive in the moment – and the moment is all we ever have.

p87, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Tantric sexuality

Tantric sexuality is a vast field of living knowledge in which coital union is infinitely modulated in terms of all the sense fields.
It voluptuates in: the soft silence of falling snow on bare branches; the succulent stickiness of budding twigs; the glorious unreserved unravelling of blossoms; and, the cool moist fire of autumnal foliage.  It is the art of the way in which the eye sees, and the poetry of the way in which the ear hears.  Eyesight penetrates visual phenomena, and is engulfed by the field of vision.  Hearing penetrates sound and is engulfed by the auditory dimension.  Every sense-perception and sense field performs, and is performed by, the same ecstatic dance.

p52, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

There can be some sense of dance …

The word ‘Tantra’ (Gyüd in Tibetan) means ‘thread’ or ‘continuity’.  The idea of thread here, is that whatever may manifest as our experience of being; the energy of our beginningless enlightenment is there.  From this perspective we need to arrive at a sense in which we can simply flow with the multiplicity of definitions that reality manifests.  There can be some sense of dance there, in which we swim with these currents and relax in these pools of stillness.  Tantra introduces us to the one taste of emptiness and form.  In order for this to be possible we need to develop an ability to actively savour dualistic tension; rather than experience it in some sort of victim role.

p34, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

The dance of the khandros and pawos

"Our emotions and our personal environment are the dance of the khandros and pawos. To know reality as the dance of the khandros and pawos is to fall in love with them. To fall in love with them is to discover our beginningless enlightenment in the endless empty nature of their dance."

p257, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, 0-9653948-0-8