Slogan 7 - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 7.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

Slogan 6 - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 6.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

I am to blame - Battlecry of Freedom

In terms of activity in daily life, the practitioner adopts the stance: I am to blame – ain’t nobody’s fault but mine. Taking responsibility for the fundamental mistake of believing in an inherent identity, means being willing to take the blame for everything. This includes being willing to take responsibility for everyday occurrences even if no blame is actually due. This is because ultimately the root blame is the mistaken belief in identity – whether that is a personal mistaken belief in an inherent identity or someone else’s mistaken belief in identity. All unkind, angry, and hurtful responses and actions ultimately arise from the belief in an existent identity that must be supported and protected.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 83

 

 

 

 

 

Slogan 5 - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 5.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

By remaining open to people you always have the opportunity to approach every meeting afresh - Illusory Advice

You cannot give up on someone because you find them difficult to be with, and you cannot condemn them to the confinement of a pigeon-hole you have fabricated for them. By remaining open to people you always have the opportunity to approach every meeting afresh and to be continually surprised and delighted. You have now discovered this for yourself experientially and will always have this understanding to draw on when you meet other people you find difficult to get along with. The more you practise, the easier it will become. The more you practise shi-nè, the more space there is to allow such discoveries to arise, and to remember helpful experiences.

page 81, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6 

 

Slogan 4 - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 4.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

Slogan 3 - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 3.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

Illusory Identity II - Nothing remains exactly the same from one moment to the next. - Battlecry of Freedom

 

If not existing in the body, perhaps it may be felt that identity is therefore intangible, dwelling in energy or mind. Analysis, however, also cannot reveal anything that exists permanently and unchanging in the emotions or thoughts. Nothing remains exactly the same from one moment to the next. Through analysis the mind is discovered to be fundamentally empty.

The delusion that identity is a something, that exists independently, continually, and without changing, creates the need to protect and support it.

The illusion of a self-existent identity is isolating and selfish – I am in pain, which is much more important than your pain. The illusion of a self-existent identity prevents enjoyment and appreciation – you are happy, but I cannot appreciate it, because it is not my happiness.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 81+82

 

Slogan 2 - Battlecry of Freedom

 

 Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 1.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

We practise living the view to encourage the entire context of our lives to become our practice. - Illusory Advice

 

Living the view is perhaps one of the most fundamental practices in the Aro gTér Tradition. We practise living the view to encourage the entire context of our lives to become our practice. Living the view is the interface between our formal practice and our everyday lives. In one sense, living the view is the most advanced Buddhist practice because it means taking the recognition of the nonduality of emptiness and form—the realised state—into every moment of our existence. At a more accessible level however, we practise living the view by trying to actively recognise the infinite permutations of emptiness and form in every facet of our lives, so that everyday experience starts to reflect the nonduality of emptiness and form.

page 77, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

 

Slogan 1 - Battlecry of Freedom

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is Slogan 1.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

The Seven Points of Mind Training, part 2

 

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

This video is the second part of Chapter 3: The Seven Points of Mind Training.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

 

 

The Seven Points of Mind Training, chapter 3, part 1

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

Illusory Identity I - Battlecry of Freedom

 

When I am in the saddle, I have the identity of a rider. When I am in the stable grooming the horse, I have the identity of a groom. When I am lying in the dirt watching the horse disappearing down the trail, I have the identity of a pedestrian.

The identity of rider dissolves into emptiness when I dismount. The identity of groom dissolves into emptiness when I leave the stable. The identity of pedestrian dissolves into emptiness when I find my horse grazing, and get back in the saddle. Identity arises, abides, and dissolves – as is the same with all phenomena. Any impression of continuation is illusory.

I am the rider, the groom, or the pedestrian, and each identity has unique qualities and attributes. Any sense of some-thing moving without changing between these identities is illusory. A soul or self cannot be found through analysis. The body may appear to be the same, but it continually changes, and has more in common with the flow of a river than with the static quality of a rock. It is in constant change and flux. No-thing abides unchanging and permanent in the human body.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 81

 

Battlecry of Freedpm - a brief historical background

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

When you are working within a lineage of practice you allow the lineage to be bigger than you. - Illusory Advice

 

When you are working within a lineage of practice you allow the lineage to be bigger than you. Through embracing the greater view of the lineage and path of practice, you can let go of referentiality and free yourself from the limitations of your own solutions. By remaining open to the view of the teacher you can avoid defaulting to finding your own solutions preferable to the suggestions indicated by the teacher, lineage, and practice. The scope of your own perspective can be more comfortable, but sometimes rather limited. Practitioners avoid going for the comfort of limited view and embrace the potentially unsettling challenge of the vastly more expansive view of the teacher, lineage, and practice. 

page 70, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

 

 

Battlecry on Horseback

 

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin and Ngakma Nor’dzin read from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’.

‘Battlecry of Freedom’ by Ngakma Nor’dzin, published by Aro Books worldwide in 2019, explores the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, Mind Training, as presented by Chekhawa Yeshé Dorje in the 12th century. His Seven Points of Mind Training offer a complete approach to daily practice in 59 slogans.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time) on Zoom Monday evenings.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913
Zoom Meeting ID: 85249620913
Passcode: 640389
Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, finishing with a reading from ‘Battlecry of Freedom’. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff

"When the world and life is full of malice and bad circumstances, transform it into the path of awakening" - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Bad circumstances offer particularly juicy objects and experiences for transformation. If an object or experience is labelled bad, there is energy there – there is an acuteness of dissatisfaction that is tangible and can be embraced as practice.

In the unusual circumstance of malice actually being personally directed, practitioners recognise the confusion and delusion behind such behaviour. Harmful actions are not perpetrated by happy people nor create happiness. Bad actions are harmful all round. If harm can be responded to with kindness, this offers the possibility of a change of view. But if harm is responded to with reciprocal harm, things just get worse and worse.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 77+78

Practice should start to filter into ordinary life - Illusory Advice

 

 

Apprentice: I guess that my involvement with you both has short-circuited enough of my neuroses for me to feel relatively comfortable. Now that I can dissolve myself into the void and taste the aliveness of each moment, part of me just relaxes because life has never been this pleasant. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of uncomfortable times where I can see my emotions going haywire, but life seems more manageable. What do you think of this rationale?

Teachers: Practice should certainly start to filter into ordinary life so that it becomes enlivened with the sparkle of emerging view. This will be uncomfortable when you notice habit patterns and neuroses, but pleasurable when you relax into view.

page 66-67, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

Tonglen II - Relieving pain - Battlecry of Freedom

 

 

There are two approaches to practising tonglen to relieve actual present pain. The first is focussing on the pain being experienced, and dissolving it on the in-breath, and sending soothing energy to the point of pain on the out-breath.

The second approach is to imagine that the pain being experienced is the pain that anyone anywhere is experiencing in that moment. Through practising tonglen with this view, it can alleviate the personal pain, but also embrace the expansive view of helping others.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 74

 

Devotion to the outer Lama enables the student to be empty in relation to the Lama. - Illusory Advice

 

Devotion to the outer Lama enables the student to be empty in relation to the Lama. This allows the Lama to conjure with the form of the student’s neuroses to mirror them, so that they become transparent for the student.

An example of this would be when Ngak’chang Rinpoche made a suggestion to Ngakma Nor’dzin with regard to a building that had been vandalised. He suggested that the stone throwers were skilful in succeeding in breaking the highest windows in the derelict building. This comment completely cut through the prejudiced view she was presenting of their vandalism.

It was not that Rinpoche was condoning the vandalism, but just offering an alternative perspective. Ngakma Nor’dzin found that this opened her view so that she was then dancing with the ambiguity of whether this was a bad action or a skilful action.

page 62, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

 

As warriors we have to live with honour, boldness, and integrity - Spacious Passion

 

Taking refuge in Dharma is placing our confidence in practice as a place of safety. This is redefining ‘safety’ as the challenge of practice. Once we become practitioners it is guaranteed that at some point practice will become inconvenient. We will wish to take the easy but less honest option; to make the half-hearted response; to indulge in believing that we have no responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves. But as practitioners, these are no longer available options.

As warriors we have to live with honour, boldness, and integrity. We cannot allow ourselves to slip into good-enough mediocrity. Our security in terms of realisation is absolutely guaranteed if we remain in the domain of practice. But the path of warriorship may be the harder and less comfortable choice. It may be the path that leads us into exposure and danger. The security of practice may be the least secure path in terms of referential personal safety and referential self-protection.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-0, chapter 9 Irrational Reason, page 215 and 216

 

Tonglen I - Secure your own mask - Battlecry of Freedom

 

A common phrase in Buddhism is that practice is engaged for the benefit of all sentient beings. Practitioners must remember that they themselves are included in all sentient beings. 

Tonglen is not a sacrificial practice. Wanting to free others of pain and be of benefit to them, does not require ignoring personal needs.
Practitioners take care of themselves, recognising that their health and welfare makes them more useful to others.

An everyday example of the wisdom of this approach is mentioned before flying in every aircraft safety presentation: secure your own mask before helping others.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 73

 

As practitioners we believe that we can change and that Dharma offers opportunities for change and liberation - Illusory Advice

 

Apprentice: I am very confused about myself. I seem to keep upsetting people and causing them pain. People seem to misunderstand me all the time.

Teachers: The way to let go of confusion is to practise. If you really practise then you will become a less complicated and more transparent person who is less likely to upset and hurt others.

When you look at other people, you may see that they are less greedy than you or have more generosity; less angry than you or have more clarity; that they are less compulsive than you or have more warmth and compassion; that they are less paranoid than you or have more active accomplishment; that they are less depressed than you or have more awareness. If you see this, then you can either believe that you are permanently trapped in your current state of mind, or that you can change.

 As practitioners we believe that we can change and that Dharma offers opportunities for change and liberation – so we practise.

 

page 58, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

Mahasiddha Lu’ipa

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin tell the stories of the Mahasiddha Lu’ipa, during ‘Monday Meditations’ at Aro Ling Cardiff, July 4th 2022.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time); https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913, Passcode: 640389.

Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, with a short teaching in the middle. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff.

Mahasiddhas Subhadra and Kankaripa

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin tell the stories of the Mahasiddhas Subhadra and Kankaripa, during ‘Monday Meditations’ at Aro Ling Cardiff, June 27th 2022.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time); https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913, Passcode: 640389.

Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, with a short teaching in the middle. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff.

Mahasiddha Vinapa

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin tell the stories of the Mahasiddha Vinapa, during ‘Monday Meditations’ at Aro Ling Cardiff, June 20th 2022.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time); https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913, Passcode: 640389.

Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, with a short teaching in the middle. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff.

Refuge: We seek protection from the neurotic tendencies which we employ in order to prevent us experiencing the natural state.

 

The dictionary defines the word refuge as ‘shelter or protection from danger or trouble: an asylum or retreat’. We have looked at the nature of the danger or threat to which we are vulnerable with regard to The Four Thoughts. 

In the context of our lives as Buddhists, we seek protection from our own conceptual minds: from our compulsion to dualistically split reality; from our addiction to conditioned responses rooted in dualistic preconceptions. We seek protection from the neurotic tendencies which we employ in order to prevent us experiencing the natural state.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-0, chapter 9 Irrational Reason, page 210
 

 

​"In all activities, train with slogans" - Battlecry of Freedom

 

The key point of this slogan is in all activities. This stresses that spiritual practice is not something that only happens on a cushion in a quiet room. This is taking practice out into the world – the ugly and beautiful, noisy and quiet, chaotic and ordered, stressful and relaxing, distressing and joyful, exciting and dull, fearful and hopeful, threatening and gentle, challenging and easy, hateful and loving, uncontrollable reality of life.

When life circumstances are painful and not as desired, Mind Training enables practice to be maintained with good humour. When life is pleasurable and happy, Mind Training enables practice to be expansive and of benefit to everyone and everything, everywhere.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 69-70

 

A teacher’s students are an essential aspect of their practice - Illusory Advice

 

Apprentice: What does it mean that the role of being a teacher is itself a practice?

Teachers: You cannot just suddenly decide one day that you are going to be a Dharma teacher. Enacting the role of teacher is a practice. Teachers are teachers by virtue of their students’ commitment and devotion to them. The role is dependent on the students around the teacher. Also remember that teachers are also students of their teachers. To learn from a Dharma teacher students need to have an attitude of openness and respect. If students view teachers as Mr or Mrs Ordinary, then their teachers are no one special for the student and they are unlikely to be able to receive inspiration from them.

Commitment and responsibility in the relationship between teacher and student is not one sided – there has to be commitment and responsibility on both sides. It is a living, interactive, creative force. When it is energised by inspiration and devotion everything becomes possible. The greatest way to test your understanding is to have to explain it to someone else. A teacher’s students are an essential aspect of their practice, in the same way that the teacher is an essential aspect of practice for the committed student.

page 56, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6