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

Restaurant Reality

I was far from sick of the world, even though it had its lows as well as its highs.  I was currently riding pretty high – and although I was aware that I needed to find the one taste of pleasure and pain, I had no objection at all to pleasure.  Maybe I’d just have to accept that you had to choose both from the menu at Restaurant Reality.  Would I ever be able to do that?  I both wanted it and feared it.

p179, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2  

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