Illusory Advice: Loving Kindness

"You need to be aware that practising loving kindness on your meditation cushion, and leaving that space with a warm glow in your heart, does not necessarily mean that your anger will arise any less vigorously or immediately should you encounter an irritating stimulus.

Shi-nè is ultimately more effective in cutting conditioning at the root. Through allowing spaciousness to develop in the mind, you are less at the mercy of your neuroses."

p8, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2016, 978-1-898185-37-6

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Stay up to date with events at Aro Ling Cardiff via the website, meetup, facebook and twitter. We meet for meditation every Tuesday evening and look forward to meeting you.

Illusory Advice: Practice is all that can be offered

"You may have heard us say that if all our apprentices decided to leave and no one ever came to our sitting group, we would simply carry on practising and making ourselves available for people. All you can offer people is your practice. You can express your own feelings of appreciation for, and commitment to, your practice and Lineage, and hold a wish for others to experience the benefits you have found – but then you have to let it go and leave it up to them."

p7, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2016, 978-1-898185-37-6

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Stay up to date with events at Aro Ling Cardiff via the website, meetup, facebook and twitter. We meet for meditation every Tuesday evening and look forward to meeting you.

Summer at Aro Ling Cardiff - July newsletter

Aro Ling Cardiff
Vajrayana Buddhism

Welcome to July - or, looking at the weather, have we slipped through a time warp into October! Events will continue as usual through July and August at Aro Ling Cardiff, apart from Tuesday 12th July and Tuesday 23rd August, when we will be away on retreat.

A series of posts have been scheduled for this blog. They are extracts from Illusory Advice by Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin. 

Extracts from this and other Aro gTér Lineage publications appear once a week on a blog called Aro Quotation. If you would like to receive the Aro Quotations by email, please go to the blog and subscribe.

The Aro gTer Lineage also offers a free meditation course. The course is delivered in weekly emails.

To support the Lineage’s appeal to establish a residential retreat centre in Wales, please see the  information at http://arobuddhism.org/drala-jong/drala-jong-appeal.html or go to the Drala Jong appeal blog.

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Aro Ling Cardiff weekly meetings
July 5th, 19th & 26th (not 12th)
August 2nd, 9th, 16th & 30th (not 23rd)

Tuesdays (all welcome without booking):
sKu-mNyé 10:30 – 11:30
Meditation & Song 12:00 – 13:00
Meditation Group 19:00 – 20:30

Aro ling Cardiff monthly meetings 2nd July & 6th August
Saturday:
Meditation & yogic song   10:00 - 11:30 (all welcome without booking)
Tsog’khorlo practice   12:30 (attendance by prior arrangement only)
Dance   14:30 (all welcome without booking for Georgian and Tibetan folk dance)

sKu-mNyé is a physical yoga practice. It offers a range of movements, from simple and gentle to demanding and vigorous – so there is something for everyone. All are welcome whatever age or level of fitness. A wonderful form of exercise that is refreshing and invigorating. Each class is 1 hour.

Meditation group and daytime meditation – beginners and experienced meditators welcome. Short periods of meditation are interspersed with yogic song and chant. Discover emptiness and self-awareness. 

Dance – dancing embraces many qualities of natural heroism: considerate awareness of the other dancers, politeness and dignity, sensitivity and enjoyment, and light-hearted and wholehearted engagement with the pattern and movement of the dance. The focus will be on the dignity and formality of the dances of the Georgian period. Occasionally Tibetan folk dance will also be taught.

Aro Ling Cardiff meets at 5 Court Close, Whitchurch, Cardiff, CF14 1JR. The practice room is on the ground floor with direct access from the street, and is wheelchair accessible.

All classes and groups are led by ordained Buddhists with many years of practice experience.

Donations are requested to cover the costs of advertising, and so that Aro Ling Cardiff can make donations to the Buddhist charity, Sang-ngak-chö-dzong #1019886.

For fuller details of events at Aro Ling Cardiff, please visit

aro-ling.org/cardiff or meetup.com/arolingcardiff
or text
07875 716644

Illusory Advice: From Sutra to Tantra

Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, 2015, Ngakma Nor’dzin

"Tantra can seem rather decadent or dangerous from the perspective of Sutra. Sutra moves towards emptiness and so personality is irrelevant. Everything is calmed down. Tantra however begins with the experience of emptiness and conjures with form. Personality and the richness of life is embraced as the material with which the nonduality of emptiness and form can be discovered."

p6, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2016, 978-1-898185-37-6

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Stay up to date with events at Aro Ling Cardiff via the website, meetup, facebook and twitter. We meet for meditation every Tuesday evening and look forward to meeting you.

Illusory Advice by Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin are the primary teachers at Aro Ling Cardiff.  Their book Illusory Advice gives an insight into the way in which they relate to both the neurotic and liberated qualities of their students.

Illusory Advice is an anthology of lively email discussions between two Western-born Buddhist teachers and their students. The questions and replies cover a wide range of topics—to which the Buddhist view is applied with directness, subtlety, and humour—such as: family life; interpersonal difficulties; and, the student-teacher relationship.

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin are a married teaching-couple of the Aro gTér Lineage of the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. They are ordained representatives of the ancient non-monastic tradition of Vajrayana, in which every-day life circumstances and individual-personality are embraced as the path of transformation.

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Stay up to date with events at Aro Ling Cardiff via the website, meetup, facebook and twitter. We meet for meditation every Tuesday evening and look forward to meeting you.

Please see the Aro Books worldwide website for more information about Illusory Advice.

Aro Ling Cardiff has moved – June newsletter

Aro Ling Cardiff

has moved . . . 

There was a smooth transition from old venue to new on May 17th. All regular attendees agree that the new gompa is wonderful (see photos below), and greatly appreciate the addition of a tea break after Tuesday evening meditation. Do come and visit the new space soon. There will be an ‘official’ opening later in the year with a formal blessing ceremony by the Lineage Holders of the Aro gTér.

Weekly schedule
Tuesdays (all welcome without booking):
sKu-mNyé 10:30 – 11:30
Meditation & Song 12:00 – 13:00
Meditation Group 19:00 – 20:30

Monthly schedule: first weekend of the month
Saturday:
Meditation & yogic song   10:00 - 11:30 (all welcome without booking)
Tsog’khorlo practice   12:30 (attendance by prior arrangement only)
Dance   14:30 (all welcome without booking for Georgian and Tibetan folk dance)
Sunday:
One day retreats – will recommence in September

sKu-mNyé is a physical yoga practice. It offers a range of movements, from simple and gentle to demanding and vigorous – so there is something for everyone. All are welcome whatever age or level of fitness. A wonderful form of exercise that is refreshing and invigorating. Each class is 1 hour.

Meditation group and daytime meditation – beginners and experienced meditators welcome. Short periods of meditation are interspersed with yogic song and chant. Discover emptiness and self-awareness. 

Dance – dancing embraces many qualities of natural heroism: considerate awareness of the other dancers, politeness and dignity, sensitivity and enjoyment, and light-hearted and wholehearted engagement with the pattern and movement of the dance. The focus will be on the dignity and formality of the dances of the Georgian period. Occasionally Tibetan folk dance will also be taught.

Aro Ling Cardiff meets at 5 Court Close, Whitchurch, Cardiff, CF14 1JR. The practice room is on the ground floor with direct access from the street, and is wheelchair accessible.

All classes and groups are led by ordained Buddhists with many years of practice experience.

Donations are requested to cover the costs of advertising, and so that Aro Ling Cardiff can make donations to the Buddhist charity, Sang-ngak-chö-dzong #1019886.

For fuller details of events at Aro Ling Cardiff, please visit

aro-ling.org/cardiff or meetup.com/arolingcardiff
or call
07875 716644

Aro Ling Cardiff is moving – May newsletter

Aro Ling Cardiff

is moving . . . 

From May 17th Aro Ling Cardiff will be holding its meetings at 5 Court Close, Whitchurch, CF14 1JR. Over the last month volunteers have been helping convert an outbuilding into a new meditation room. The room has been insulated and is now being painted in the traditional colours of a Nyingma gompa. 

24th April: yellow and red nearly complete.

It is a larger space, and will be quieter than the Merthyr Road venue – although some people may miss the tempting smells from the chip shop next door! The new meditation room is also on the ground floor with direct access from the street, and so can offer disabled access.

29th April: orange stripe finished - just the green stripe to paint

All activities will continue without a break, but move to 5 Court Close from Tuesday 17th May. The only change will be that weekend events will now all happen over the first weekend of the month with the retreat days moving to the Sunday. A variety of meetings will be offered on both the Saturday and Sunday

Weekly schedule
Tuesdays:
sKu-mNyé 10:30 – 11:30
Meditation & Song 12:00 – 13:00
Meditation Group 19:00 – 20:30
sKu-mNyé is a physical yoga practice. It offers a range of movements, from simple and gentle to demanding and vigorous – so there is something for everyone. All are welcome whatever age or level of fitness. A wonderful form of exercise that is refreshing and invigorating. Each class is 1 hour.
Meditation group and daytime meditation – beginners and experienced meditators welcome. Short periods of meditation are interspersed with yogic song and chant. Discover emptiness and self-awareness. 
Monthly schedule: first weekend of the month (from June)
Saturday:
Meditation & yogic song   10:00 - 11:30 (all welcome)
Tsog’khorlo practice   12:30 (Aro Lineage practitioners only)
Dance   14:30 (all welcome for Georgian and Tibetan folk dance)
Sunday:
One day retreats   10:00 - 17:00 (all welcome for teachings on Vajrayana Buddhism as advertised)   

Sunday June 5th

Body, Speech and Mind 10:00 - 17:00 £25 donation requested

As human beings we exist as emptiness, energy and form. In order to liberate and awaken our experience it is important to engage with Dharma practice at all three levels – mind, speech and body. This one day retreat will look at the physical practices of the Aro gTér Lineage, such as sKu-mNyé and ying’khor, interspersed with periods of yogic song and meditation.

All classes and groups are led by ordained Buddhists with many years of practice experience.

Donations are requested to cover the costs of advertising, and so that Aro Ling Cardiff can make donations to the Buddhist charity, Sang-ngak-chö-dzong #1019886.

For fuller details of events at Aro Ling Cardiff, please visit

aro-ling.org/cardiff or meetup.com/arolingcardiff
or call
07875 716644