The conditioning is going to be stronger

For people who are not in the nondual state however – it might be more helpful to be at a retreat centre, by the ocean, or in a forest. As long as you are dualistically conditioned—if you’re in a place which evokes that conditioning—the conditioning is going to be stronger than in a place that doesn’t evoke conditioning.

p383, Warp and Weft of Wonderment, Ngakma Mé-tsal, Aro Books Worldwide, 2024, ISBN 9781898185680

Fleeting glimpse

We say ‘only a nyam’ because a nyam is not the nondual state, but one can experience the nondual state momentarily, and the afterglow of that is called a nyam.  This does not detract from there having been a fleeting glimpse of the nondual state.

p87, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7  

Open and embodied

Discovering the nondual state is not a process of internalisation.  We do not cut off from the external world.  Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or ideate is undivided from the nondual state – so, to be present, is to be entirely open and embodied.

p83, 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 

A natural function of Mind

It may come as a surprise that thought is not antithetical to the nondual state.  Thought is a natural function of mind.  Where nothing arises from emptiness, there is no energy – and, consequently, no clarity.  The reason for continuing in practice in order to arrive at a state without thought is that it provides the space to unlearn the neurotic relationship with thought. 

p50-51, 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 

Dzogchen becomes feasible

     Recognition of the nondual state is the basis for approaching Dzogchen – but, in order to enter the path of self-liberation, perceptual phenomena must come to be perceived from the experiential standpoint which is empty of references.  It is only when the undivided nature of ‘that which arises’ and ‘that from which phenomena arise’ is first glimpsed that Dzogchen becomes feasible.

p17, 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

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

We are prejudiced against our own natural state

 Fear of otherness lies at the root of prejudice.  From the point of view of duality – nothing is as ‘other’ or dissimilar as the nondual state.  From the perspective of nonduality we are prejudiced against our own natural state.  In the condition of dualistic estrangement – our own beginningless enlightenment becomes alien to us, and we are therefore antagonistic to it in every form it assumes.  From this primitive antagonism every type of prejudice arises. 

p156, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3