Creativity

Becoming cheerfully creative means becoming open to playing with ideas, and having enthusiasm in carrying them forward as a mutual project.  You can only feel creative by being creative – and you can kick-start that at any moment as a matter of will.

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

Happiness

I was not saying that happiness and realisation were synonymous.  I was saying that you should allow yourself to be happy.  The two words however are linked.  Happiness is closer to realisation than depression. 

p238, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

The imaginary illness

The Lama gives us skilful remedies for the imaginary illness of dualistic derangement in order that we discover for ourselves that our illness is imaginary.

p300, 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 vajra master

 

The vajra master provides the truest and most universal, egalitarian context.  Vajra masters see the nondual qualities of all their disciples, and allow them to receive transmission according to their individual capacities and relative constraints. 

p288, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

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 

 

Merely distortions

Tantra is based on the experience of emptiness, and through this experience we can come to the actual knowledge, that all negative or painful states of mind are merely distortions of our enlightened nature.    

p110, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Bewilderment and wonderment

We oscillate between bewilderment and wonderment, and practice allows us to experience a space where duality and non-duality begin to flicker.

p224, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Kindness

Although it is not always kind to say what you mean – it is always kind to mean what you say.  Kindness comes before being frank. 

p317, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Otherness

From the perspective of the visionary practices of Vajrayana it is possible to transform every aspect of prejudice against otherness – of every possible description.

p304, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Drala

The practice of Drala is a method of becoming aware of the sentient nature of the world.  This is important at this time of climate change and increasing pollution.

p284, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Meaning

Life is an existential kaleidoscope in which meaning is only found in the moment.  If one tries to extend meaning beyond the moment – meaning often becomes increasingly meaningless. 

p239, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Curiosity

Life is far richer when inquisitiveness is more powerful than anxiety – when curiosity is more powerful than fear. 

p228, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

All one can ‘do’

The journey involves whatever it involves and there is always a sense of time and distance – but with a fruitional path, those aspects of time and space have no direct application.  All one can ‘do’ when one reaches the goal, is to remain.

p74, 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 

The fruit of any practice

The fruit or result of any practice cannot actually be practised as such, because the end result of anything is theoretically a position of stasis.  One can make a journey and arrive at a destination – but having arrived at one’s destination, all that can be said is that one ‘enjoys being there’.   

p74, 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 

Perception

When we open our perception, we do not feel constrained to anticipate events or people's possible reactions.  We stop registering every being by our perceptual sonar in terms of our preconceptions.  Perception then begins to expand.  We are led naturally towards the liberation of our responses.    

p33, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2 

How we see what happens

The circumstances which befall us in the world are—generally speaking—the random functioning of the universe.  So merit is not what happens to us – but how we see what happens.  If we have kindness-Mind we initiate kindness-action – and kindness becomes the way in which we perceive the world. 

p81, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2  

Honour

You need to keep agreements with yourself, and with others.  I think this is really fundamental.  You need to be able to stick to some course of action; to see it through in spite of difficult circumstances.  You need to be reliable.  You need to be form for others; rather than being emptiness for them.  That’s one meaning of compassion.

p192, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4  

Infinite variety

‘Infinite variety’ speaks of the limitless, transient nature of form – the way it continually arises out of emptiness and dissolves back into emptiness,  Infinite variety means that there is nothing about the way in which form arises that is predictable according to dualistic perception.  

p102, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

On the brink

Non-duality and duality are not disconnected from each other.  If you understand that, then suddenly you’re always perched on the brink of realisation!  Every moment becomes potentiated, because it is seen as a distortion of our intrinsic liberated energy.

p208, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4  

For practice to mean anything

For practice to mean anything, one has to change for the better.  One has to be free—or freer—from habitual responses such as territorial avarice, petulance, selfishness, manipulativeness, and obdurate obfuscatory self-protectiveness. 

p19, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7