Effortlessness

Pure appropriateness is an invisible dance in which one is transparent in terms of what is taking place.  there is an effortlessness that is not even named or differentiated from effort.

p237, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Dynamically linked

Every state of mind, however distressed or distressing, is dynamically linked to the nondual play of the free elements.

p190, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Life is short

Life is short; it makes no sense not to plunge deep.  Plunge into whatever it is that makes life worth living.

p163, 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 same nature

When life experience seems most arduous or difficult, simply remember that your Mind is of the same nature as Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyel.

p204, 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 illusion of continuity

Every moment is death. Every moment is birth. Death and birth flicker as cinematographic film flickers – and gives the illusion of continuity.

p198, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Direct awareness

When all there is, is the felt texture of the canvas against the brush and the direct awareness of colour in motion – that is meditation.

p199, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Boredom marks the beginning of realisation

Once you develop experience of shi-nè, boredom is no longer boredom – it becomes a rolling wave of energy.  So, boredom marks the beginning of realisation.  Without boredom there’s no discovery.

p81, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Boredom

Boredom is a sign that: one is not alive to one’s senses.

p81, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Wind Horse

rLung rTa—Wind Horse—is enjoyment.  Enjoyment means to occasion or to engender joy.  Joy is upliftedness – the natural response to phenomena and to being alive.

p30, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Anarchy

Anarchy from the perspective of Dzogchen has nothing to do with rebellion or overturning the social order – one simply needs to ignore the rules of cyclic derangement.

p29, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Eventual death

Falling in love—if it is authentic love—betokens the eventual death of the ‘me project’.

p75, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Enjoying their presence

Kindness is inseparable from appreciation and enjoyment.  If one likes people, one will be kind in relation to them.  One cannot like people without appreciating them – without enjoying their presence.

p67, 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

An entire gestalt

Naming moments of inspiration as Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyel is not a question of conceptualisation for a practitioner because Padmasanbhava and Yeshé Tsogyel are not concepts,  They are an entire gestalt, which is both conceptual and non-conceptual.

p166-167, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

Active compassion

Active compassion, changchub sem (byang chub sems—or bodhicitta), could be expressed as: appreciative empathetic appreciation.  The term changchub sem is vast, subtle, and infinitesimally varied in its meaning, according to the endless permutations of sentience dancing with phenomenal reality.

p114, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

All of my own making

My situation now—and in the future—would also be all of my own making.  The only realistic mental state was openness to the future – and to whatever the future held.

p340, Goodbye Forever Vol. II, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2021, ISBN 978-1-898185-60-4

Discovering the nature of reality

“ ... I made the distinction between Truth and reality.  I don’t see Buddhism as owning ‘truth’ – because Buddhism isn't a religion of ‘truth’.  It’s a religion of ‘method’ – and, its methods are ways of discovering the nature of reality.”

p177, Goodbye Forever Vol. II, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2021, ISBN 978-1-898185-60-4

The words of Dud’jom Rinpoche

I remembered the words of Dud’jom Rinpoche ‘With each life circumstance: whatever is enacted, stare directly into the enactment – with all the senses.’

p194, Goodbye Forever Vol. II, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2021, ISBN 978-1-898185-60-4

The mechanism of samsara

We do not get stuck in reference points.  We create them and suffer as they collapse and cease to be reference points.  All you can do is ‘be as open as possible to all possibilities’ whilst observing the mechanism of samsara as you play it out.

p81, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7 

 

Fleeting glimpse

We say ‘only a nyam’ because a nyam is not the nondual state, but one can experience the nondual state momentarily, and the afterglow of that is called a nyam.  This does not detract from there having been a fleeting glimpse of the nondual state.

p87, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7