Help us to establish Drala Jong - a Buddhist Retreat Centre in Wales

Help us to establish Drala Jong - a Buddhist Retreat Centre in Wales
Help us to establish Drala Jong - a Buddhist Retreat Centre in Wales

Monday 18 March 2024

A heart sensation

In order to establish a connection with the tradition and the lineage, a heart sensation for Guru Rinpoche and Yeshé Tsogyel is indispensable – just as form and emptiness are indispensable in our practice.

p205, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Monday 11 March 2024

Out of the state of emptiness

After you’ve received empowerment into the practice of a particular awareness-being or yidam, the form of this awareness-being will spontaneously arise out of the state of emptiness when you engage in practice.  Your experience of emptiness is the oven where the bread of vision bakes itself. 

p116, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Monday 4 March 2024

The practice of yidam

The word 'yidam' can be translated as 'awareness-being' or 'meditational deity'.   To arise as the awareness-being, is to wear the body of visions.  The form of the yidam gives us the opportunity to enter the world of form as the yidam.  This is what is called living the view.  Living the view means that we retain the feeling that we are the yidam in whatever we do.  We experience the world around us as the realised dimension of the yidam.   

p96-97, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Monday 26 February 2024

A good horse which can be ridden with joy

rLung is the wind principle – which is powerful and direct.  rTa means horse – the energy which can be ridden.  rLung rTa is a sophisticated energy. which is clean, decent, honest, honourable, and committed – a good horse which can be ridden with joy.  The situation resplendent with rising rLung rTa is fresh and exuberant – but only eminently rideable once you have mucked out, groomed thoroughly, and cared for the tack with assiduous patience.               

p197, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Monday 19 February 2024

Self-sustainingly cheerful

rLung rTa is the cheerful uplifting quality which resides as a natural aspect of our lives.  One could define it as authentic existential appreciation.  It is spontaneously present and self-created as an aspect of awareness.  When rLung rTa is present—or if we wish to encourage rLung rTa—we give phenomena the attention they deserve.  

p197, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Monday 12 February 2024

Likes and dislikes

We feel it is important for people to be open and forthright about their subjectivity – and at the same time to acknowledge their subjectivity as being just that: subjectivity.  If you regard your likes and dislikes as subjective, there is never any clash with another person – no matter how strongly worded your like or dislike happen to be.

p192, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Monday 5 February 2024

Assume kindness

It is important to observe ourselves and understand our condition.  It is also important not to observe others with a judgemental eye because we probably have no conception of their condition or motivation.  It is always better to assume that other people have kind motivation – especially when they are acting in ways we would not act.  We all see the world in different ways – and so it is not possible to judge someone else’s actions or words on the basis of our own way of seeing.

p73, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2  

Monday 29 January 2024

Communicating with dignity

When it can take as long to spell out an acronym or letterisation in speech – there is more dignity in using the words the initials represent.  A Vajrayana practitioner needs to communicate with dignity – because Mind, Speech, and Body need to be the focus of practice in every arena of life.

p56, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Monday 22 January 2024

Transparent to ourselves

 

The experience of meditation practice is essential as a means of realising the view.  It is only within the development of the meditational experience that we become transparent to ourselves.  When we become transparent to ourselves, we can witness the mechanics of stylised perception – and only then can we free ourselves from restriction.

p49, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Monday 15 January 2024

Dance with the situation

The dance costume of Vajrayana is demanding in terms of personal responsibility, integrity, and honour.  One can don the costume and enter the dance – but to sustain the dance throughout one’s life requires a degree of familiarity with the pattern of motivation.  Life resembles dance – and a piece of advice which Trungpa Rinpoche gave was to ‘dance with the situation’.

p42, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Monday 8 January 2024

Both imposters

Neither cynicism nor naïveté should be taken as reference points for one’s identity.  If one wishes to impress people with one’s intellect one opts for cynicism.  If one wishes to impress people with one’s spirituality one opts for naïveté.  If one has no desire to impress anyone, one opts for treating both imposters just the same.

p35, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Monday 1 January 2024

Karma

Karma is pattern.  Karma is the pattern through which we apprehend our existential / experiential environment.  Karma evaporates as soon as we see the pattern.

p60, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Monday 25 December 2023

The meaning of ‘accident’

The Nyingma are indeed called ‘the accident lineage’, but not because they are accident prone.  The meaning of ‘accident’ is more concerned with working with chaos than surviving calamity.  The nature of reality is the dance of chaos and order.  Order arises out of chaos and dissolves back into chaos—and this is why Nyingmas are not overly concerned with establishing institutions.

p7, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7


Monday 18 December 2023

Continually breaking through

Becoming a Buddhist is a process of continually becoming a Buddhist – of continually breaking through limitations and conditioned perception.

p86, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Monday 11 December 2023

The basic ground of being

The essence is empty.  The nature is clear and unimpeded.  The energy is free of all barriers and is boundlessly compassionate.  We have arrived at what is known as the kun-zhi – the basic ground of being beyond duality and non-duality.

p102, Rays of the Sun, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1-898185-06-2

Monday 4 December 2023

A superbly complete portrait

The form of the yidam is essentially instructive.  Through assuming this form, we learn to experience ourselves as possessing limitless capacities.  The limitless nature of our capacities is described by the many different forms in which yidam can be practised.  Each form is a particular avenue of approach to the experience of enlightenment.  Every image is a complete portrait of the enlightened state.

p97-98, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Monday 27 November 2023

A grand illusion

Without the Lama there is no way out of the experience of infinite cross-referencing.  No matter how differently we experience our various explorations into the internalised world of ‘sense-making’, they always add up to the same thing: justification for our need to maintain a grand illusion.  This illusion is duality.

p143, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Monday 20 November 2023

Liberation

Liberation is ours to see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and ideate – but all we seem to sense is the shifting surface of that vastness.  We see reflections, but are blind to the nature of the mirror.  We see waves, but fail to experience the ocean.  We see clouds, but cannot conceive of the sky.

p188, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Monday 13 November 2023

Tortuous patterns

Essentially we have always been nondual.  Dualistic derangement is merely the fear of that fact – playing itself out in tortuous patterns.

p188, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4

Monday 6 November 2023

Inspiration

This is something crucial to apprehend.  Inspiration surrounds us continually: in the laughter of seagulls; in passages of music; in the natural beauty of phenomena; in the beauty of the kindness which can flow out of human beings; in the unexpected, spontaneous, and surprising experience of existence.

p313, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4