Animals can display human-realm mentality and humans can display animal-realm mentality - Illusory Advice

 

Confusion sometimes arises through thinking that teachings on the animal-realm of the six realms refer specifically to the animals we see in the world, and because of the assumption that all human-looking beings live in the human-realm. There can also be a tendency to romanticise animals, as somehow innately spiritual. Animals can display human-realm characteristics of discrimination and humour, whilst humans can display animal-realm mentality of being humourless, trapped in a particular view, lacking awareness of others. Teachings on the realms of being are helpful in enabling you to become aware of your mind-set in any moment. Through the practice of meditation, capacity to be aware of that moment—and the realm of that moment—increases, so that ‘lower realm’ or ‘higher realm’ states of mind can be immediately exploded.

Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6, p14

 

Listening - Relaxing into Meditation

 

In the relaxation technique of Listening, that is all we do – we listen. We do not listen and read a book. We do not listen and become fascinated with the contents of the room. We do not listen and analyse the structure of the music. We simply listen.

Relaxing into Meditation, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-898185-17-8, p17

 

 

A Good Sangha are a Group of Irritating People - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin discuss the benefits of being part of a Sangha (community of practitioners).   

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: Sangha is an important aspect of being involved in a lineage because the Sangha are supportive to your practice. It’s always inspiring to practise with other people and to see people changing through that practice. That’s inspiring – because it makes you realise that practice really does function.

In the Aro Tradition the Sangha has a particular quality to it: of people having a good sense of humour, people taking responsibility for themselves. One of the ideas of Sangha is that your fellow practitioners won’t support your neurosis. So if you’re gossiping about somebody or saying negative things about a situation, then they won’t just say, “Yeah that’s true” and join in and gossip with you. They’ll present a different point of view or say, “Well actually my experience of that person has been that they’re very kind” – or whatever. Then they can be frustrating if you want to be a gossip and have somebody support your point of view. But from the point of view of realisation, they’re your best friend because they stop you falling into those habit patterns of assuming that your view of a situation is the correct one.


Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: So a good Sangha are quite an irritating group of people from the point of view of neurotic functioning, because as Ngakma-la says they’re not going to support you in that. They’re actually more supportive of your realised nature than perhaps you are yourself. So within that environment, which is something we set ourselves up for - nobody’s made to join the Sangha - we set ourselves up for that and we say we are committed to this path of practice and so we’re committed to the Sangha and within that environment you have a group of people who are supportive to your practice and helpful in overcoming and transforming the neuroses that we have.

Sky Mind - Spacious Passion

 

 

Clouds arise and dissolve in Sky Mind continually, and this movement is not limited by physicality. The stream flows and is not limited by the landscape through which it moves. It may be in a rich and verdant valley where it flows fast and full. It may be trickling through limestone in an underwater cavern. It may be struggling through a barren wasteland as a tiny remnant of its former power. Movement of mind continues.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-4-0,chapter 5 Infinite Impermanence, p111  

 

 

Rigpa is the experience of nonduality – the nonduality of form and emptiness - Battlecry of Freedom

 

Fundamental unborn awareness is rigpa. It is awakening, and the goal and the fruit of Buddhist practice. Rigpa is the experience of nonduality – the nonduality of form and emptiness. The form qualities of emptiness are that emptiness is unchanging. The emptiness qualities of form are that form continually changes and moves. In this way emptiness and form are nondual in being inseparable. The experience of unborn awareness—the awareness of nonduality—is hidden by the process of concretising and focussing on form and ignoring emptiness. 

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

 

Sangha is the Family We Have Not Chosen - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin explains how Sangha are like family.

 

 

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: The Sangha are very like family in that you haven’t chosen them, it’s a group of people who come together because of the common connection with your teacher or with other teachers within the lineage. So just like family they may be a group of people that in ordinary life you wouldn’t choose to be your friends. Because we're a Vajra family, because we’re Sangha, it’s a really good opportunity to learn to get on with all sorts of people, to find that you could be friends with a much wider range of people than perhaps you think you could be in ordinary life.

 

Experiences that arise from practice are called nyams - let them go - Illusory Advice

 

Experiences that arise from practice are called nyams. The general advice with regard to these experiences is to let them go – they are simply an indication that you are practising. To regard nyams as special can tend to make you want to seek them out. If, for example, you experience a particularly strong nyam during a meditation session—such as a feeling of bliss, or a powerful visionary experience—there is the danger that you then start to look for this experience again whenever you practise. You can then turn your meditation sessions into trying to return to that experience – forgetting that the nyam arose spontaneously simply through your practice.

Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6, p14

 

 

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

 

 

The Arts as practice

In Aro gTér Buddhism there is a strong focus on engaging with the Arts as practice. I find it hard to put into words the change of view I have experienced from going to a local art group for an hour and a half a week.  

The grave yard at the Church of Saint Winwaloe, Cornwall,
by Siân Bussingham

Producing just one piece of artwork a week has made me change my relationship with what I see around me. Now when I go out for a walk I feel as though I am wandering through works of art. 

Skies and landscapes now suggest to me acrylics, watercolour, pastels, or ink. Somehow the vibrancy of my surroundings seem to communicate to me much more.

This is one of the transformative joys of being a practitioner within in the Aro gTér Lineage.

Ritual - Illusory Advice

 

Apprentice: I sometimes experience quite a strong resistance to the use of ritual and symbolic form.

Teachers: You could totally immerse yourself in ritual and see what happens … or you could start to notice the rituals with which you are continually surrounded: the hello/goodbye ritual; the would-you-like-to-come-up-for-a-coffee ritual; the what-to-wear ritual for going to work, a party, a ball, or playing football; the walking-towards-someone-in-a-corridor ritual; and so on.

Once you start to notice the rituals of your everyday life, those which surround entering the dimension of the yidam may not seem so exotic and obscure.

page 10, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

 

Sutra, Tantra and Practice in Everyday Life - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin explains the perspectives of Sutra and Tantra and how the Ngak’phang style of practice is ideal for people who want to live ordinary lives.

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: The Sutrayana path is the path of renunciation and the ultimate expression of this is monasticism – where you give up your engagement with the ordinary aspects of life. You remove yourself from that and go and live somewhere like a monastery. You remove yourself from desiring things, because you own nothing, you have no money, everything that you need is very basic and provided for you – so you are removing yourself from the objects of desire. Then desire doesn’t arise, and one discovers emptiness. This is the principle of the Sutrayana path.

Now from the perspective of ordinary people who are continually surrounded by objects of desire, this can be quite a difficult path in which to engage in any meaningful way. There can be the danger of trying to be so mindful about desire that one actually becomes somewhat flat in one’s experience of engagement with the world. Because you’re trying not to allow the experience of desire to arise, you become very mindful in a sense of you’re continually watching yourself, you’re continually keeping your energies under control, keeping your emotional states under control.

Meditation is not relaxing - Relaxing into Meditation

Meditation does ultimately lead to deep mental, emotional and physical relaxation that is beyond ordinary expectation. The practice of meditation however, requires commitment and discipline which is not specifically relaxing in itself – certainly not initially.  

Relaxing into Meditation, Ngakma Nor’dzin, page 4, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN:  978-1-898185-17-8

Fire is a potent symbol

Fire is a potent symbol of transformation.

Here, in this old photograph (May 2005), Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, are seen through the smoky haze of a fire ceremony, burning the old clothing of a newly ordained apprentice. This celebrates the death of the apprentice—consumed in the flaming pyre—and their rebirth as an ordained tantrika.

Human rebirth - Spacious Passion

It is not the birth into a human body that is so excruciatingly rare.  This is not the wooden yoke the turtle is seeking.  The rarity is arising as a being who is willing and able to take advantage of the opportunities and endowments offered by a human rebirth, by engaging in spiritual practice.  To live with wholesome dedication to a path which develops wisdom and compassion is not so common.  Dedicated and engaged practitioners of any spiritual path are greatly out-numbered by those who do not follow any religious discipline or who simply pay lip-service to one.  Our desire to be part of the crowd and make our lives docile, so easily undermines honour and sincerity. We continually compromise sparkling, present vibrancy for the mediocrity of ‘good enough’.  To activate our potential as human, we must live our lives as warriors: fearless, without need of reward or recognition, honourably upholding the cause of kindness and awareness.  This is the rarity and preciousness of human rebirth.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor’dzin, chapter 4, Coming up for Air, page 98, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-4-0

Practice is Supposed to Make a Difference - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin discuss practice and how it is supposed to make a difference in people’s lives.

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: What matters in the end is: is it making you a kinder human being; is it making you a nicer person to be around; is it making you happier? That’s what matters in the end. If having a belief in a God makes you a kinder human being – great, get on with it.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: And that’s why it’s important to make sure that your motivation and your formal practice is balanced with compatible activity in your life without laying down any kind of prescription about what those activities might be – because that’s wide open. But if we find that we’re acting unkindly in our lives it’s a sign that we haven’t brought practice into our lives as much as we should, and it gives us something to look at. So it’s important that however we are in our lives is compatible with our idea of being better as people. One of the quotations from Ngak’chang Rinpoche is that ‘it’s supposed to make a difference’ – practice is supposed to make us kinder, more aware people. If it is not doing that, then we’re missing out on something.

Success and dissatisfaction - Battlecry of Freedom

 Success and dissatisfaction 

The base of Sutra is the experience of dissatisfaction. In order to experience dissatisfaction, there needs to be some experience of satisfaction. There needs to be experience of success in life – some success in creating form in life that is functional. Success might include: being able to hold down a job and be self-sufficient; being able to develop and sustain healthy relationships; being able to experience an ordinary level of happiness without needing to resort to drugs, excessive alcohol, or other addictive supports. 

If despite having the capacity to be relatively successful in life, dissatisfaction is nonetheless experienced, this can be taken as the point of departure for a spiritual journey.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Part II - the slogans, p. 34 Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8

Solitary retreat - Relaxing into Meditation

It is a common experience in solitary retreat, that everything becomes stripped bare. One can experience moments of: ‘Why on earth am I mumbling these words in a foreign language, getting up so early, and sitting on my own with aching knees and a stiff back?’ – or something to that effect. At such times shi-nè can be a great strength and support, because of its directness. The practice of shi-nè has its own logic that can be experienced directly. If other practices, such as mantra accumulation, feel less accessible at the moment, it is fine to concentrate on shi-nè.

Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, page 9, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

Practice Needs to be Bigger than Us - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Aro Ling Cardiff - 360 Degrees

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin discuss why a path of practice needs to be bigger than us and why it’s sometimes inconvenient.

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: Really to engage in something that is going to change you and move you in a direction of spiritual development, it has to be bigger than you are. It has to—in effect—become inconvenient at some point. So the sitting practice becomes a little difficult: it's not very comfortable, you don't really want to do it -- but you do it because that is the method.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: We become part of a path of practice to receive the help and support that that has to offer, and if we're the biggest thing there, then it's not going to be of much support to us

Ngakma Nor’dzin: Just a support to your neurosis.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: So in a sense we enter into something that’s bigger than us and, as Ngakma Nor’dzin says, does become inconvenient. But when we take refuge, and when we take vows, it's important to take that on, knowing that they will be inconvenient at some stage, and not to kid ourselves that things are necessarily going to be plain sailing.

Sometimes vows and commitments—to my mind—look a bit like the barriers on the side of the motorway. So if you're falling asleep at the wheel, they will gently but firmly—and with nasty scraping noises—put you back on to the motorway and hopefully wake you up.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: … without hitting anyone else...

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: … and our vows and refuge commitments are there. If we were completely realised, we'd never bump into our vows. If we're not realised, occasionally we bump into our vows and take notice and put ourselves back on the road again.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: I think Buddhism is a bit like cooking: that you are given a recipe, you're told what the fruit or the product of the recipe is going to be, and then you just try to cook it. You put the ingredients in and you produce the results. You take it to your teacher and your teacher says 'Mmm, not quite right – you just need a little bit more sugar'. So you take it away, you engage in the method again you cook it again, take it to your teacher, and this time we need just a little bit more spice, or whatever.

Now if you haven’t got the teacher or the lineage there to actually say that what you've produced is nice, but it's not actually what the recipe is aiming at – if you haven't got that person who is bigger than you, who can look at that, outside of your own frame of reference, then you might think that the very first time you cook the cake, what you've got is what was intended by the recipe. You can never actually know whether that cake tastes like the person who wrote the recipe intended.

But if you've got somebody who created that recipe or has received transmission of the recipe down the generations, tasted it from a master, tasted it from the next master, and so on – then they can say exactly how it should taste, and they can tell you how it's not quite right.

Living the View - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin with horse in Montana

In this video from February 2010 Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin and Ngakma Nor’dzin discuss Living the View and viewing oneself as a practitioner at all times.

Transcript

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: One of the simplest approaches to living the view is to view oneself as a practitioner at all times. It can be very easy to view oneself as a practitioner whilst you are sitting, and to forget all of that once you’ve left your sitting place. But to have a memory of that with you—because most of our practice happens when we’re not practising formally—and to have that be with you – to take it out with you, and to understand what it is to be a practitioner in the world is important.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: I think there are probably different levels of living the view. When we are on retreat with our Sangha—with our Vajra bothers and sisters—then we have living the view at quite a high level: we assume that everybody in that setting has good intention towards us. We enter into the confidence that that’s what that situation is like. So we try to be worthy in that situation and similarly we view the people in that situation that they have good intention towards us. That means that if something is going on in a conversation or whatever, and somebody appears to be not being very kind, we assume that we have misunderstood their intention rather than responding to the apparent unkindness. So we live the view that our Vajra brothers and sisters are realised beings. This creates a wonderful rich creative space in which one can try to live honourably. One can try and live at the very pinnacle of what it means to be a good, honest, honourable human being.

It’s obviously much more difficult to do this in an ordinary everyday-life setting, but I think having had the flavour and experience of this in the sangha setting, one can start to experiment taking risks in an ordinary-life setting. The first thing that we try and do is to assume the best of other people.

A very simple example of this would be when the children were young (they are grown up now, left home, at university and everything), but when they were young there was always this standing-outside-the-school-gate period that happened when you went to collect your children from school – especially at junior school of course; junior and infant school. Now one of the root vows of Vajrayana is ‘never to denigrate the opposite gender’. Often the conversation outside the school gate seemed to be a bunch of women slagging off their husbands—saying negative things about their husbands—and the tendency was that there would be a general, ‘Oh yes, mine’s like that as well …’ And I—from the point of view of my vow—could not join in with this – and from the point of view of my relationship with my husband, didn’t want to join in with this because this was not my experience of our relationship.

So I would try, without the other people feeling put down in any way, to just say something like, ‘Well yeah, but also this…’, or ‘I haven’t found that, I’ve found this…’ and just try and present a more lighthearted view, or try to bring some humour into the conversation, or whatever – just say, ‘Well actually it doesn’t always have to be like that. My experience isn’t that it’s always like that, and does it actually help us all, standing here agreeing with each other about this not-very-helpful view of our husbands? We are in relationship with them, so surely the best thing to do is to appreciate that relationship, not moan about it.’

So this is just a simple example of how you can try and live the view even in ordinary life.

Practice and Ordinariness - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Ngakma Nor'dzin

In this video from February 2010 Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ‘ö-Dzin discuss being ordinary and being practitioners.

Transcript

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: One of the most important aspects of what we do is to take our practice into our lives and yet live lives that are pretty much the same as everyone else’s.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: To all intents and purposes we just look like ordinary people most of the time. We wear our robes when we’re ‘on duty’, if you like – when we’re being ordained practitioners: so when we’re teaching, we’re representing the Lineage in some way. But in other ways our lives are very ordinary – we were ordinary clothes ...

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: … and we look like ordinary people because we are ordinary people. You don’t have to have a spiritual organ somewhere in your body in order to make it possible to practice. It actually means that you’re part of the world, but your practice is part of what you do.

Buddhism - the Religion of the Manual Labourer - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Chhi’mèd Rig’dzin Rinpoche

In this video from February 2010 Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin talk about the differences between religions in terms of the explanation given by Lama Chhi’mèd Rig'dzin Rinpoche and how Buddhism takes a scientific and experimental approach to practice.

Transcript

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: I very much enjoyed Chhi’mèd Rig'dzin Rinpoche's view because he was able to talk about the differences between religions without making it right or wrong, better or worse.

He would say that Hinduism is the religion of the king. If you want anything you go to the king, and the king will give you what you need. Christianity is the religion of the prince. If you want something you go to the prince, the prince will talk to the king on your behalf and you’ll get what you need. Islam is the religion of the ambassador. If you want something you talk to the ambassador, the ambassador will intercede on your behalf with the king. But Buddhism is the religion of the manual labourer. If you want anything, you have to do it yourself.

So there are different styles of practice. People are drawn to different things. Some people need a God in their lives and that inspires them. Hopefully it inspires people to be better people because of their methods of practice. Buddhism doesn’t have that, which is why Buddhism is not suitable for everybody. But for those people who understand the principles and methods of Buddhism, and feel that they are drawn to that, or want to even experiment with it – because silent sitting and Buddhist practice is like the scientific laboratory of your mind, where you sit and you find out what it’s like to sit. There’s no question of needing faith because you’re faced with direct experience. So you sit and you see what your mind does in those circumstances. Then from there you might find that’s interesting and that you want to pursue that further, and then the whole thing can explode out into the vast array of possibilities that Buddhist practice offers and you find methods within that that are helpful with your own particular condition.

Buddhism and Dharma - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

Ngakma Nor’dzin Pamo

In this video from February 2010 Ngakma Nor’dzin introduces Dharma as a means of discovering the nature of reality: as it is.

Ngakma Nor'dzin: Buddhism a very broad term that covers a huge range of different styles of people and approaches, but all Buddhism has a path and the path is Dharma. From the perspective of our approach, Dharma is translated as ‘as it is’. What we are trying to discover through the practice of Buddhism—through Dharma—is as it is rather than as we think it is, or as it appears to be, or as we have been told it is. It’s (purpose is) to have a direct experience of the nature of reality – so we engage in practices to quieten with the mind and open the mind, so that we can discover the nature of mind. Then, through discovering the nature of mind, we allow that to filter out into our ordinary experience so that then we start to discover the nature of reality through experiencing the nature of mind. So we discover that how things are is not always how we think they are. Perhaps we stop using thought as a means of explaining the world to ourselves all the time. Through experiencing as it is in our meditation, we start to allow the world to reveal to us what it is, rather than laying on the world and experience what we believe it to be.

Meditation is a life skill - Relaxing into Meditation

Meditation is a life skill – like taking exercise or learning how to cook. It is a skill that enables anyone and everyone to live their life more fully and more happily. If everyone meditated for a few minutes every day, the world would be a more peaceful and friendlier place.

Relaxing into Meditation, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN:  978-1-898185-17-8, page 4

Simple and direct - Spacious Passion

To engage with the experience of emptiness through the practice of meditation is simple and direct. I begin to recognise the chatter of the mind as superficial. I discover a deep well of stillness that exists

behind the chatter. I begin to recognise the ebb and flow of conceptual mind and the still potential of the nature-of-mind.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-4-0, Chapter 2, page 34

Is Buddhism a Philosophy or a Religion - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Ngak’chang Rinpoche & Khandro Déchen

In this video from February 2010, Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin discusses the question of whether Buddhism is a philosophy or religion.

Transcript

Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin: You can put Buddhism into all sorts of categories and how you’d answer a question as to whether it’s a philosophy or a religion might depend on the purpose behind the question. I think if you are filing books in a library, then you probably want to put them all on the religion shelf. Buddhism has a philosophy, or has several philosophies, and has many methods.

People who define religion in terms of a belief in a god wouldn’t file Buddhism with religion, but in terms of its outward aspects and the fact that many schools of Buddhism are very colourful, very noisy and perhaps does things that are similar to the style of other religious observances, then to be honest you’d say: ‘This is a religion.’ There was a fashion maybe twenty years or so ago of saying: ‘It’s not a religion, it’s a way of life’, but I’m not sure what a way of life is, if it’s not a religion.

It could be seen as a peculiar religion, because there are many things about it that don’t appear to be the same as other religions, but if we had to pick one way of describing it, it would probably be most honest to say that (it is a religion), because when people come into the environment of practice it actually looks a lot like a religion.

It may not have—and it need not have—dogmas or beliefs, because it tends to work more in terms of discovery. So a practice will be indicated and you discover what you discover through that. When you don’t have to believe anything before you start, you just need enough interest usually to get yourself sitting on a cushion and that’s where it begins.

So from that point of view it’s not like a religion in the sense of having to believe a piece of material before you can start. That’s not needed. From there, once we begin to practice, if we find that practice is helpful and useful, we can go further. We can ask questions and we can find out more about it. Then there is an almost infinite wealth of possible things that we could study to find out more about the underpinnings of Buddhism in terms of how it functions. But in practice, we tend to learn about what’s going to be helpful to us or what we are enthused about, rather than learning factual material just for the sake of it.