Sensing

The fundamental genius of Tantra is that the sense fields are interconnected. You can feel with your mind and think with your nose.

p216, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

Being alive

Engage with the sense fields. Become authentically involved with the senses. Being alive is being surrounded by colour, sound, fragrance, and texture. 

p38, 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 

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  

The interface with the sense fields

The arts are bodhicitta.  The connection is quite clear; especially when you look at the level of humanitarianism among artists.  Beyond that however, one has the interface with the sense fields as the arena in which bodhicitta communicates.

p176, 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 

You will have no time for ‘unhappy’

Re looking at colours …  Include sounds, textures, fragrances, tastes, and ideational vectors and you will have no time for ‘unhappy’.  ‘Unhappy’ is what we create by turning off the senses.  It is possible to be happy by allowing the senses to be absorbed into the sense fields.

p180, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

You can feel with your mind and think with your nose

What is it like to look at a mountain, or a cherry?  What is it like to hear bird-song?  What is it like to feel velvet?  Is this a one-way process – or is this, in some inexpressible way, a communication?  You see, the intellect is a sense field.  You don't have to understand everything through that one sense field.  The fundamental genius of Tantra is that the sense fields are interconnected.  You can feel with your mind and think with your nose.  

 p216, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

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

Sexual embrace

Male and female qualities of existence are the play of reality itself.  They continually interpenetrate and inter-engulf each other as non-dual dance.  The tantric vision of reality is one in which sexuality is the meaning of every nuance of existence.  To see the colour of a bird’s plumage is to be in sexual embrace.  Listening to the bowed strings of a cello is to be in sexual embrace.  Inhaling the saline scent of sea air; savouring the taste of a heavily tannic wine; caressing the intriguing surface texture of a weathered stone; contemplating the delicate elaborations of a cognitive pattern; all these sensory communications are sexual embrace.  They are self-communicated communication – and they are continuously arising from and dissolving into emptiness.

p101, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3
 

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

The ground of experience and perception

 “Basically I see Vajrayana as the essential nature of being an artist. Vajrayana explores the sense-fields as the ground of experience and perception.”
“That sounds almost more like science than religion” commented Penelope – with evident interest.
“Yes...in some ways. Maybe...like science and psychology – expressed through poetry and understood though all the Arts.”

p111, An Odd Boy Volume 4, Doc Togden,  Aro Books Worldwide, 2017, ISBN 978-1-898185-42-0

Happiness is not accidental

Everything either occurs or does not.  That would appear to be a fact of nature.  Happiness, however, is not accidental.
To be happy, appreciate the sense fields and attempt to live more fully in the moment.  Do not complicate your experience with concepts.  Employ concept less than vision.  Employ concept less than hearing.  Employ concept less than tactility.  Employ concept less than fragrancing.  Employ concept less than savouring.

p239, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The arts are bodhicitta

To be involved with the arts is to be involved with all beings – because all beings are endowed with sense fields which perceive the arts.  It is not simply the arts as they are commonly understood: it is the nature of artistic perception which is entranced by the totality of phenomena.  The arts are self-manifested – and any artist who understands this sees art in everything and everyone.  An artist sees all beings as artists.
This understanding of art as bodhicitta is central to the essential Vajrayana of the mahasiddhas.

p176-177, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7