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

Inspiration

This is something crucial to apprehend.  Inspiration surrounds us continually: in the laughter of seagulls; in passages of music; in the natural beauty of phenomena; in the beauty of the kindness which can flow out of human beings; in the unexpected, spontaneous, and surprising experience of existence.

p313, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Some kind of miracle

I was always amazed with the way that phenomena could be brought into being.  Even when I was part of the act of creation – the creation was still some kind of miracle.  There was no God – but every creative human being—every artist—was some kind of god.  Creativity was a natural phenomenon that pulsed in us all – and our rôle as beings was to allow that to surface from the primal ocean of existence. 

p173, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2 

Fresh, and somewhat fabulous

Infinite variety isn’t particularly predictable or unpredictable according to non-dual perception.  When perception and field of perception are undivided, there’s no need to relate to phenomena as either predictable or unpredictable.  All phenomena are unified in the compassionate quality of their arising, so there’s no sense in which anything has to be approached with suspicion.  There is no plan that needs to be made.  There is nothing that has to be taken into account.  The arising of phenomena is simply delightful.  Infinite variety has the quality of continual surprise in the sense of wonderment.  But this wonderment has nothing to do with anything being either expected or unexpected. Phenomena are simply fresh, and somewhat fabulous. 

p136, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Appreciation, natural etiquette, and unpretentious elegance

What I try to encourage is appreciation.  True appreciation is, of course, natural elegance.  Fundamental appreciation of phenomena—in the very nature of their appearance—is all that is needed.  There are the phenomena which we apprehend, the phenomena of our being, replete with the sense fields which animate that being.  Elegance is composed of delight and fearless embracement in which we are not gluttonous, timid, or torpid.  Every deranged default impetus is overridden with the sense of splendour, the sense of exquisiteness, the sense of immaculacy. 
From the point of view of Dzogchen, the beauty of genuine decorum lies in the non-manipulativeness of its natural etiquette and unpretentious elegance.  We should all therefore aspire to appreciate what is beautiful in each other–whatever the clothing or absence thereof.

p196, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7