Romance is an Important Part of the Aro Lineage Teachings - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010 Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin discuss the value of romantic relationship as an aspect of the path of practice.

Transcript

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: Romance and relationships are an important part of the teachings within the Aro Tradition, and how romance can be part of a path of practice. To have people who teach as couples is also a reflection of this. I came originally from a background where all my teachers were monastic, and to move into a Sangha where you have a teaching couple was quite a revelation: the idea that your teachers actually have a romantic relationship and reflect to you how a romantic relationship can exist without neurotic functioning (which is often thought to be part of it), and this in itself an important teaching. So a teaching couple teach not only through what they say, but with how they are with one another as well.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: So our students often will come and stay with us—not just come on retreats—and they see that we we’re a happy couple and our practice is informed through the fact that that we practice as a couple and are in romantic relationship – that we actually like being together and enjoy each other's company and love one another. So this is all very helpful for our students.