I’m talking about the courage it requires to be alive, and to relate to the world in a real and caring way. To be alive, and to take responsibility for what you feel. By courage, I mean that you have to have a certain level of love, dynamism, and integrity. Really; just to be able to cut out the kvetching, whinging and whining – the ‘poor me’ mode. I’m not talking about feeling sorrow or having to cry; life can be tragic at times – for all of us. I'm talking about acting as if it were unfair and wallowing in that; rather than having a good sob and then turning to face the raw texture of it all again, saying “Right! Let’s have some more!” It’s important not to hide from life. It’s important not to play it safe too much. This could be the last hour of your life. It could be the last day, week, month or year. . .
p239, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
You could, occasionally, simply ask yourself: “What decision would I make if I knew that this was the last year of my life?” This could be a practice of looking at your life; especially in terms of major decisions. For certain other decisions you could reduce the time scale to one month. Having the support of your Lama and vajra family, can be really crucial in this. Your vajra brothers and sisters are very important in terms of actualising your own courage when life gets a little too ferocious.
p240, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
There’s no reason why the word ‘irrational’ couldn’t have a positive meaning. It obviously can have a positive meaning if you put it into a suitable context; but on it’s own it tends to sound like something you wouldn’t want to be. I think that allowing the irrational into your life is a very exciting idea! People are quite often obsessed with sense-making, even though the sense they make often makes no sense at all from the perspective of realisation. Let’s be irrational now! Let’s practise together!
p244, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
‘Courage’ is a form-related word, or an active-compassion related word. Courage certainly means the ability to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’; but it also has the sense of really owning your capacity to love and care for others. We often stifle the great capacity for love that we have, through our fear of losing all sense of boundaries – as if we needed boundaries! Courage is very much linked with compassion. Compassion, at the level of our intrinsic nature, is linked with all our activities – especially our activities of personal interaction.
p243, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4
The elements are the symphonic texture of vajra-romance. They are also the cacophony of neurotic attachment. The cacophony however, only exists in terms of duality, because from the point of view of the infinite purity of the phenomenal world – symphony and cacophony are undivided, and it is this fact which makes vajra-romance an immense opportunity. Even within our confusion we partake of the realised state.
Nondual reality sparkles through every aspect of our being and the Khandro Pawo Nyi-da Mélong Gyüd is a key to direct knowledge of this state. For the khandro and pawo each point in time is a pivotal point – a point at which the elements can be allowed to become ballet, or a point at which form-attachment cripples any nuance of movement.
p230, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3
The five elements are ubiquitously at play. They play within the display of phenomena. They play within the entire reach and range of the sentient spectrum. They play through our physicality; through our intellectual faculties; through our emotions and imagination; through visionary dimensions – down to the subatomic structure of being. They play within the spheres of essence, nature, and energy – within ‘duality and nonduality and the infinite purity of the phenomenal world.’ By virtue of this, it should come as no surprise that every relationship is comprised of the performance of the elements – and, that romance is orchestrated by the elements.
p229-230, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3
We can only share the experience of love if we relinquish our definitions of who we are and what we propose to become.
Love is there when the artificial divisions between us dissolve into the iridescent spectrum of our beginningless nature. The love which radiates from our primordial state cannot help but sparkle through: no matter how insecure, frightened, isolated, anxious, or bewildered we become.
To fall in love, and to realise one’s beginningless nondual nature, have tantalising similarities. They reflect each other. The Khandro Pawo Nyi-da Mélong Gyüd is a teaching that elucidates the nature of this reflection in a manner which has the capacity to change the world.
p4-5, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3
Our senses are the communicative quality of the elements in which the dance of existence and non-existence allows ‘self’ and ‘other’ to be both separate and non-separate. Spaciousness gives birth to ideation; wind carries sound, vibration, and the possibility of hearing; fire ignites vision; fluidity encourages fragrance and tasting; and substance phenomena allow touch. Our intellectual faculty is comprised of elemental patterns – as are our emotions. The sub-atomic structure of being is the play of the
thig-lés – the five essential elemental expressions of emptiness from which everything comes into being.
p197, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3
Whenever I remember this story (told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche), I look at my life for symptoms of this rare disease—kindness—and whatever signs of health I exhibit cause me to stimulate new areas of infection. The most saddening aspect of life for me, is to witness immunity to the disease of kindness either in myself or others. Although I initially preferred the first story, the second has caused me to reflect a great deal on the nature of kindness – and how it can be encouraged in the world. The idea of kindness as an illness—with all its attendant concepts of infection and contagion—is highly creative. This manner of expression is a brilliant example of how Tantra turns language on it head.
p138, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.
Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4
We artificially separate experience into two fields: ‘perception’ and ‘field of perception’. The term ‘perception’ applies to the way in which we register the presence of the world through our sense faculties. The term ‘field of perception’ applies to the world that we perceive. With divisive logic we distance ourselves analytically from direct experience. We lose our ‘knowing’ and end up 'knowing about’'.
Our perception and field of perception are mutually self-creating. What we see incites a reaction which influences how we see it. How we view things changes how they are. Enlightened Mind is divisionless. Our perception and field of perception are completely and utterly interconnected, and this fundamental indivisibility is the real nature of experience.
p31, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8
The word ‘mindfulness’ is not a bad translation of dranpa (dran pa—smriti in Sanskrit) but it is more accurately translated as ‘resting in recollection’. Recollection does not mean thinking about a past event—but ‘being present with what has been received as teaching’. The word ‘awareness’ is not an equivalent for ‘dranpa’ – because ‘awareness’ relates to rigpa or non-dual awareness.
p63-64, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7
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
The practice of shi-nè involves the renunciation of attachment to form as a reference point. Through shi-nè we learn that we cannot force thought. We need to be completely purposelessly welcoming. Whatever thought arises simply moves in its own way. Any approach involving force results either in hilarity or frustration. One needs a sense of humour about one’s condition. One catches oneself trying to force meditation – repeatedly. All we can do, however, is watch ourselves in the process of trying, until trying wears itself out with trying in the open space of awareness. This is patience in terms of shi-nè – as we speak of it from the point of view of the Four Naljors of Dzogchen sem-dé.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: The Ten Paramitas, Khandro Déchen
Our karma is entirely how we perceive the world – moment by moment. So the ‘law of karma’ is not just law, it is the entire legal system. It ranges from the inception of the legislature to the nature of law enforcement and punishment. Our perception is the legislation and our responses enforce it. We are our own judge, jury, and prosecution. We sentence ourselves, gaol ourselves, and execute ourselves. This is the only entirely accurate legal system – but its accuracy only exists within its own frame of reference.
Meditation is our only weapon against this repressive regime and constitutes civil disobedience in the form of ‘passive resistance’. By allowing the development of experiential space through shi-nè – through letting go and letting be – we discover our own intrinsic awareness. The Four Naljors of Dzogchen Sem-dé is one of the ultimate crimes against the ‘law of karma’ and is punishable by enlightenment – the final revolution and overthrow of the legal system.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: Karma: the personal police state Ngak'chang Rinpoche
I have thought about this question of power many times, since my discussions with Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche. I have realised that power has got very little to do with power to – but rather, power not to. It is not a question of supernormal abilities. It’s a question of being prepared to die in the next moment – to be totally insignificant. The power to be unafraid of looking like an idiot. The power not to care about what people think or say. It is not a question of being physically, intellectually, or emotionally strong – but of being open to annihilation. Everything has to matter—and not matter—at the same time.
p242, Wisdom Eccentrics : Rumours of realisation as told by Künzang Dorje Rinpoche with additional tales of the unexpected.
Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9653948-6-4
It is said that meditation isn’t, because it’s not an end in itself. It is said that getting used to is, because the enlightened state is already there and we simply have to become accustomed to that. So, meditation is getting used to the enlightened state, cooperating with the enlightened state.
What’s important is simply being. We simply get used to the condition in which thoughts are not present or in which they arise and dissolve. Boredom is actually the threshold of discovery. This is just the point at which something interesting could happen—if we simply continue to sit.
p24, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
To integrate practice into everyday life, you can let go of the sharp divisions between the times when you’re sitting and the times when you’re not sitting. You should allow the spaciousness you discover in your sitting to overflow into your ordinary life experience. You can start by allowing the postpractice period to be a time when you remain completely with whatever you’re doing.
If you sit for an hour, make sure that you have at least fifteen to thirty minutes for the postmeditation period. When you get up from your sitting session, stand up slowly and with awareness. Continue to find the presence of your awareness in whatever sensation arises—but avoid conceptualizing about the process.
You could get up and make a cup of coffee. You could do the washing up. But whatever you do, simply be with what you’re doing.
p153-154, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
Imagination relies on empty perception. Painting relies on empty planes. Sculpture relies on empty space. Music relies on empty time. Literature relies on empty concepts. If we are to realise the art of freedom, if we are to discover our creative potential, we need to rely on the experience of our instrinsic vibrant emptiness—the beginningless ground of what we are.
The gateway to the art of freedom is the practice of shi-nè—our method of approaching the white canvas of Mind.
p49, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
Attuned intent is motivation without a ‘drag factor’. It’s streamlined—aerodynamic. It gives you access to incredible power and capacity for accomplishment of whatever needs to be accomplished. In order to accelerate into the unimaginable, we have to let go of the ballast—jettison the habits of view that create drag factors.
The drag factor is the thing that slows you down. Mixed and conflicting motivations produce a drag factor and inhibit our development and growth as human beings. As long as there’s a drag factor, we experience frustration and the unsatisfactory outcome of our wishes or intentions, whatever they might be. Attuned intent is unmixed motivation, motivation without conflict—single-pointed motivation.
p145-146, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Shambhala, 2002, ISBN 1-57062-944-7
The awakened mind warriors delight in unbounded wealth because their appreciation is unlimited. Appreciation generates generosity which knows no limits.
The Vajrayana view of wealth is grounded in the understanding that one owns everything that enters one’s sense fields. We own whatever we appreciate, to the extent that we appreciate it and for the duration that we appreciate it. We do not require personal ownership in order to own. Our ownership does not restrict the ownership of others, because our ownership is simply that of appreciative faculties.
This non-possessive, non-controlling absence of tenure is called ‘vajra greed’ or ‘non-dual greed’ – greed on behalf of others. Greed on behalf of all beings is both the maximum possible avarice, and the ultimate expansion of generosity.
Aro Encyclopaedia Index: The Ten Paramitas, Khandro Déchen
