The style of our responses

We cannot be responsible for many things.  But we are all responsible for how we feel about the things that happen to us.  To embrace our emotions as the path, we must take responsibility for the style of our responses.    

p91, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Our own responsibility

The development of clarity arises from our growing awareness of the natural spaciousness of being.  With growing clarity, the life problems that occur cease to manifest so painfully.  We no longer add to their intensity as an automatic reflex.  Ultimately, our lives are our own responsibility.  Our problems are for us to work through.  There is no use in blaming the state of our lives on anybody else.  

p90, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

All our plans and efforts

With the discovery of experiential space we can let go of the emotional investment we put into all our plans and efforts.  Things actually become easier when we allow ourselves to play with our situation, rather than having to take it totally seriously.  The lightness of this approach is a manifestation of our developing clarity.

p90, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Fertile field of learning

Unless we embrace the monastic life, we have to work with the richness of the dualistic condition in all its complexity: monochromatic boredom and technicolour excitement; joy and sorrow; decisions and dilemmas; set-backs and exultations; misfortunes and rewards.  It is a fantastically fertile field of learning but we have to find the experiential space in which we can pursue plans very lightly; and, with a pronounced sense of humour.  

p89-90, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8 

A ‘dangerous’ game

Creating conducive circumstances, for ourselves and others, involves planning and making efforts which in many respects is a ‘dangerous’ game.  Plans can be made and plans can fall apart, but that is no reason not to make plans.  The failure and success of plans simply gives us an opportunity to experience failure and success as the ornaments of equanimity.  If we have some sense of space, this is a distinct possibility.  

p89, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

Intrinsic to human beings

Knowledge of Vajrayana is intrinsic to human beings – not in the sense of complex symbolism and elaborate colourful mystical motifs, but in the sense that Vajrayana is our condition.  Vajrayana is our condition, in the sense that Vajrayana is the thread of continuity which runs through every aspect of what we are.  In this sense Vajrayana may be invisible – but it is also sharply and poignantly perceptible.  The Lama shows us this reality.

p68, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

Mere indication

Mere indication means that something is suggested, and in that moment there is a whole gestalt.  Mere indication however, in terms of transmission, means that one simply hears directly.  One’s stream of awareness is ‘seeded’ with this mere indication, and there is no more to do or to think.  It is perfect in that moment.  Then … all one has to do is allow that moment to remember itself.  

p31, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

The dance of emptiness and form

What then exists for those who are drawn to pursuit of realisation – but who remain unattracted by the option of detaching from ordinary everyday society?  What exists for those who experience spiritual value in their interaction with the world?  The answer is that Vajrayana exists – not necessarily the Vajrayana of liturgical recitation – but the essential Vajrayana, which expounds the dance of emptiness and form within every nuance of experience.

p44, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

It will be whatever it is

Awakening will occur at the time it occurs. It will be whatever it is. It will arise from whatever situation it arises. The responsibility of the practitioner is simply to practise.

p176, Battlecry of Freedom  Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8  

 

When it arises

Let go of the past. Each present moment is a new opportunity. Do not let past grievances distort the relationship with whomever or whatever is in the present moment. The past is the past. Leave it there. Awakening—when it arises—will be in the present moment.

 p161, Battlecry of Freedom  Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8  

Love is there

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.

p5, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3

Something completely delightful happens

When the quality of our experience becomes more spacious, something completely delightful happens.  This sense of space enables us to develop the ability to see the pattern of our continual attempts to manipulate the world – according to what we imagine would be our advantage.  Once we start to see these frantic manipulative strategies as something artificial, they begin to lose their hold on us.  Seeing the patterns of distracted-being, and recognising them as such, is the beginning of clarity.

p96, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

The most subtle aspects of our perception

Light and sound are the most subtle aspects of our perception, but we should not take the words ‘light’ and ‘sound’ too literally. Light and sound simply equate to a level of experience, and to a manifestation of energy that can be pointed at by those words. It is simply that our sense faculties of smell, taste, touch, and cognition are not adequate as vehicles to open up that realm of experience.

p17, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

The natural relationship between all beings

We can only share the experience of love if we relinquish our definitions of who we are and what we propose to become. We become besotted with each other when circumstances align themselves in such a way that we catch glimpses of each other’s beginningless nondual being.  These glimpses are rays of light in the sky of our being. In these glimpses we see our own intrinsic nature reflected back. Our love for each other is a rapturous reflection of the love which exists as the natural relationship between all beings and all situations.

p4, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3 

Moments of magic

In spite of our compulsion to distance ourselves from the texture of our experience, we do also value the qualities of immediacy and spontaneity. Most people can remember moments of magic in their lives; moments when their consciousness was naturally expansive. Moments when there was a feeling of spaciousness – when everything unfolded with a sense of wonder and ease. This is possible when we have unguarded moments – moments when we forget to mix in our pre-structured concepts with what we perceive.

p32, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8

An enormous difference to our lives

Accepting sole ownership of our emotions can make an enormous difference to our lives.  Unless we accept the responsibility of owning whatever we feel, we will not be able to embrace our emotions as the path.  As soon as we accept that we cannot actually justify our feelings, we can start to approach our feelings openly.  To let go of justification requires that we let go of our experientially claustrophobic habit of referentiality.  With some sense of space we can begin to experience our emotions as they are; rather than as if we had rehearsed them.

p92, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8  

A theme that runs throughout history

In a situation where you are feeling very hurt, it would be helpful to tell yourself that: ‘No-one has done anything to me – someone has merely done what they wanted to do; because they wanted to be happy.’  The fact that the thing which makes another happy makes you miserable, is a theme that runs throughout the history of human beings on this planet.

p92, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8  

The fire of wisdom can burn away illusion

To practise Tantra is to plummet into wisdom-fire.  The word ‘fire’ is used because fire transforms solidity into emptiness and shows us the empty nature of the material world.  Fire is a fascinating element – it’s both tangible and intangible.  You can’t pick it up – you can only pick up what it’s burning. It’s intangible and yet it destroys or devours tangibility.  It has great power to transform substance, yet it seems to be substanceless.  So wisdom-fire as a Tantric term carries the sense in which wisdom; that is to say primordial wisdom, can change the world as we perceive it quite radically.  The fire of wisdom can burn away illusion – it can reduce our own hard and substance-orientated concepts to ashes. 

p12, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4  

We have to let go of what we are

Dying means letting go of self-image and self-conception.  We have to let go of what we are and open ourselves to what we can un-become.  From a Buddhist point of view it is unbecoming not to un-become.  In order to un-become, we must let go of security and find the security of insecurity.  We must discover the freedom of insecurity in which security and insecurity dance as nondual display.  If we cannot let our past preconceptions die we have no future, and cannot experience the present.  Unless we can die, we cannot be alive in the moment – and the moment is all we ever have.

p87, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

The merest marginal moment

The question of death however, is subtle.  It is not merely an issue of when the last breath is taken.  Death pervades life.  Death is a continual presence.  Death assumes the form of: conclusion, termination, removal, exodus, exclusion, subtraction, confiscation, separation, parting, loss, departure, and in fact – any finale.  Death can be the merest marginal moment in which something mutates, misfires, or changes.  Death is not simply the day-by-day shift of the aging process which adds its lines to our faces, but the infinitesimal truncations which enable ‘old versions of ourselves’ to die and be replaced by rebirths in each passing moment. 

p182, Entering the Heart of the Sun and Moon Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen,  Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-3-3