Apprenticeship - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin explain what it means to be an apprentice within the Aro gTér Lineage. 

Ngakma Nor’dzin: To be our apprentice means that you have decided that you feel that we as individuals could be your teachers, and that you feel that you want to enter into some sort of a long term relationship with us, in that way. You feel that the Lineage—the Aro gTér Lineage—is the right place for you. It feels like home. You feel that the community of practitioners—the Sangha—that you’ve met, the other people within the Aro Lineage – that they are the sort of people you would like to be like, you’d like to get to know them, you’d like to be part of that community. Now from a practical point of view, being an apprentice simply means that you’re able to come on apprentice retreats. Apprentice retreats often cover similar topics of teachings that you get on open events but perhaps in a little more depth. Probably the primary benefit of becoming an apprentice is that you can have an ongoing relationship and communication with us. You can write to us, you can visit us. You can develop a very personal relationship with us and you can have individually-based instructions.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: I think there’s something quite important also in terms of the word ‘apprentice’. If you were apprenticed to a blacksmith, eventually you would become a blacksmith. If you’re apprenticed to a carpenter, you eventually master that trade. So there’s the idea that we’re not students forever, in the sense of never being complete in knowing what the practice is and how to carry it out. There is quite a practical bias in the use of the word apprentice rather than student. We are Apprentice Tantrikas aiming to become masters of the trade of Tantrikas – you might say. This means that our involvement in apprenticeship is one where we are continually learning.

Refuge - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

 

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin explain the refuge of no refuge.

 

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: I think refuge is a rather unfortunate translation of the word ‘kyab’ (sKyabs) because we have all sorts of associations with the word ‘refuge’ that don’t really have anything to do with what is meant in Tibetan Buddhism by it. We think of refuge as a place of safety – somewhere we can go to take us out of a bad situation, so that we’re in a safe situation where everything is going to be nice and comfortable and we’ll be alright.

But in fact Buddhist refuge is not quite like that. Buddhist refuge is finding the security of no security. It’s finding the place that isn’t safe but is real – actively engaging with allowing things to be ‘as it is’; actually taking that risk of just engaging with the reality of how things really are rather than how we think they are or how we wish they are.

We take refuge in the Buddha who is fully awakened, fully realised. The Buddha is the completely enlightened being that knows exactly what it means to experience ‘as it is’. We take refuge in the Dharma, the teachings of practice that challenge us continually – so again it’s not a place of safety, it’s a place of challenge. We take refuge in the Sangha who are not the friends who are going to say, ‘There, there, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be fine,’ or join us in our neurotic destruction of the person down the street who is a bit peculiar. They’re the people who are going to say, ‘Well actually, that’s not a very kind thing to say,’ or pick us up and bring us back to being practitioners.

So to take refuge is to take on living as a Dharma warrior, living as somebody who is going to be straightforward, honest, truthful, kind, honorable – a genuine warrior in the ancient sense of a knight in armour who went into battle emblazoned in bright colours and was fearless in the face of possible death.
 

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: To take refuge is a challenge. It becomes the bottom line of how we are as people. We advise people to think carefully before taking refuge. It’s seen as making a statement that, ‘I am a Buddhist’ but that in itself could be entirely meaningless if it happens on the basis of some sudden emotional involvement with practice, because what we’re saying is we’re actually taking vows at that time – that where we go and what we look to are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. We don’t go back to our own neurotic tendencies in order to deal with life situations. When taking refuge we are setting ourselves up for that challenge and taking that seriously.

Practise breathing through the day - Relaxing into Meditation

 

It can be especially useful to employ a breathing exercise in the morning before the demands of your day begin. It may help you become fully awake and refreshed and ready to start the day.

At other times of day, breathing exercises can calm you if you are feeling worked up, or can encourage clarity if you are feeling flat and lacking in energy. Breathing exercises may also have therapeutic benefits, such as helping with pain relief, insomnia, and emotional distress.

Relaxing into Meditation, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-898185-17-8, page 13

 

Bhutan maintains its culture of Vajrayana Buddhism and remains a place of pilgrimage

Mural of Thangthong Gyalpo inside the
bridge-house at Tachog Lhakhang

 

Thangtong Gyalpo is known as the ‘Tibetan Leonardo Da Vinci’. He is known as the creator of Tibetan opera and he used the money made from opera performances to finance bridge-building.

There is a sense of living history and living practice in Bhutan. Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin comments: ‘It was inspiring to be able to spend time in this wonderful environment.’

Bhutan is famous for having a $250/day ‘Tourist Tax’ aimed at enabling Bhutan to have an income from tourism whilst reducing the negative impact that tourism can have.

In fact the cost isn’t a Tax. it is simply a fixed payment which then pays for the entirety of your stay in Bhutan. This covers the cost of the hotel, food, guides, transport and visits to places of interest. Once you arrive in Bhutan there is little need to pay for anything at all and you may feel like royalty. In this way, Bhutan remains Bhutanese rather than trying to create a tourist attraction.

Aro gTér Lineage practitioners visit Bhutan because it maintains its culture of Vajrayana Buddhism and remains a place of pilgrimage for Vajrayana Buddhists.

Impermanence and Death - Spacious Passion

 

Impermanence and death are the joy of being. Impermanence and death are the continuity of existence. How wonderful.

How wonderful that every moment is an opportunity for something new to arise. How wonderful that the selfish moment in which I just indulged can die, and that a new moment of generosity can arise. How terrible—not to mention fundamentally impossible—it would be if there were only permanence and eternity. How terrible to be trapped in a particular mind-moment forever. What endless suffering that would be. How wonderful that a moment of appreciation cannot wither and lose its sparkle by becoming fixed and permanent.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-4-0, chapter 5 Infinite Impermanence, page 115

 

Pilgrimage - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

Boudhanath Chörten

In this video from February 2010 Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin discuss the benefits of pilgrimage.

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: One of the reasons that we go to Nepal on pilgrimage is to meet Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s teacher, who is called Kyabje Künzang Dorje Rinpoche – and his wife Jomo Samphel. Künzang Dorje Rinpoche is now quite elderly—I believe he’s in his eighties—and getting quite frail. For a long period of time, Ngak’chang Rinpoche wasn’t able to be in touch with him, but in recent years they re-established their relationship and it’s just wonderful to see them together and experience the affection that exists between them – the great regard they have for each other. So that’s one of the primary reasons that we go Bodha in Kathmandu, in particular, on pilgrimage.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: It’s also helpful to go anywhere where practice is part of life. For an apprentice, and for somebody who is about to be ordained or considering ordination, or for somebody who already is ordained, it is valuable to be part of the environment where you find that people are practising – ordinary people walking along the street. They have their tengar in their hand or they’re practising khora around the Chörten, and turning the prayer wheels there. It shows that practice part of everyday life. This is different to what we normally experience – and yet for a practitioner of Vajrayana actually part of what we enact within our lives, albeit not in such an overt way. There’s a display of practice and it’s helpful for practitioners in the West to see that in action.

The only reality - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Fundamental unborn awareness is like natural riding. It is available to discover, but is obscured by intellect and concept.

Meditation enables its discovery by cutting through intellect and concept. Meditation places the mind in the reality of the present moment. [...]

To discover unborn awareness—rigpa—the present moment must be embraced exactly as it is. It cannot be embraced as how it might be or how it was.
When the moment has been exactly as it is, then the moment dies. It dissolves into emptiness and the next moment arises. That is also embraced exactly as it is. Continuing in this way is awakening. Recognising that exactly as it is, is the only reality, is the experience of rigpa

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p42, 43