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 26 February 2018

We have to begin with that which presents itself

One begins with the accidental nature of what is occurring—and accepts that as the nature of one's current reality. 
We do not have to begin with clarity, because clarity is inherent in every situation.  We simply have to begin with that which presents itself.  This will include our mistakes and the mistakes of others.  It will include errors, omissions, miscalculations, appropriations, misappropriations, faux pas, indiscretions, and oversights . . . 
Clarity is a groundless experience, but one that we can only realise when ground and groundlessness are realised a non-dual.  When we accept confusion as the rich ground from which clarity can be discovered, we can cease being our own enemies. 

p3, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Monday 19 February 2018

Drinking the wine of the situation

Simply allow the given situation to be what it is.  Simply avoid the urge to convert it into something else – that is to say, do not attempt to translate it in terms of an educational process.  Simply see it.  Simply perceive it.  Then simply allow it to abandon itself. 
If you experience something and then allow the experience to abandon itself, you will provide space in which felt-knowledge and phenomena merely take their own course.  Self-abandonment is the yeast in the fermentation process in which mind gives rise to wine – rather than whining. 

p76, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

Monday 12 February 2018

Appreciation, natural etiquette, and unpretentious elegance

What I try to encourage is appreciation.  True appreciation is, of course, natural elegance.  Fundamental appreciation of phenomena—in the very nature of their appearance—is all that is needed.  There are the phenomena which we apprehend, the phenomena of our being, replete with the sense fields which animate that being.  Elegance is composed of delight and fearless embracement in which we are not gluttonous, timid, or torpid.  Every deranged default impetus is overridden with the sense of splendour, the sense of exquisiteness, the sense of immaculacy. 
From the point of view of Dzogchen, the beauty of genuine decorum lies in the non-manipulativeness of its natural etiquette and unpretentious elegance.  We should all therefore aspire to appreciate what is beautiful in each other–whatever the clothing or absence thereof.

p196, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7


 

Monday 5 February 2018

Bedazzlement

Space exists but we tend to miss it.  We miss space because we are always looking for it.  A vast dimension exists, but we never seem to see it.  We tend to be too concerned with the microscopes and telescopes of conventional credibility, but we never gaze at immediacy with our naked eyes.  If we simply looked we could find the specialness of reality.
All we need to do is gaze tenderly at the living bedazzlement of existence.  We could just simply gaze at whatever arises and enjoy the immense vision.  We would then realise that celebration is taking place in the vastness of inner and outer space.

p198, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7