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 

 

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  

The voltage of pure panic

The power of Tantra doesn’t go with wanting to be calm.  It goes with being willing to ride the voltage of pure panic!  In Tantra, we have some knowledge of the calm of ‘non-arising’ – the state without definitions; the state of emptiness.  So; when we recognise this state of emptiness, as the basis of what we are, we can then turn round and face phenomena with fierce compassion!  The spirit of heroism embraces the tumultuous flood of existence, in which: war and peace; calm and panic alternate – but, have the same intrinsic taste.

p16, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

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

Tantra is simply, the one taste of all sensation

   In Tantra, sensation is the path. That means every sensation: hot and cold; pleasure and pain; sharp and blunt; agony and ecstasy; hope and fear; falling in love and having a panic attack.   Neither aspect of these polarities are ends in themselves. Tantra is simply, the one taste of all sensation.  To practise Tantra is to ride the energy of duality.
No-one can be called a yogi, yogini, or tantrika, if they cannot experience pleasure and pain – and experience the one taste of the energy that is the ground of both experiences.

p10-11, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4