Impermanence

As we become familiar with viewing impermanence [in this way] and embracing the present moment, our mind-moment experiences can become less clumpy.  We can start to develop awareness in every actual mind-moment. 

At first we experience presence in a clumsy, artificial way like the flickering frames of an old black and white movie.  We continually attempt to apply awareness to our experience and arise with presence, so that we can act from the liberated energy of spontaneity rather than the stilted constriction of expectation and anticipation. 

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro books worldwide,2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-4-0, Chapter 5 Infinite Impermanence, page 126

Teaching as a Couple - Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010 Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin talk about the benefits of teaching as a couple – both for themselves, and for students.

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: The Aro gTer Lineage is unusual—possibly unique—in that we have teaching couples rather than just individual teachers. I think this offers a wonderful opportunity for people who become students to have a teaching couple. You have the same sex teacher as your role model, and you have the opposite gender teacher – who is your teacher in that they can reflect to you in a different way to the same gender teacher.

So this offers a great scope of inspiration and capacity for what teachers can offer you as a teaching couple. For us as a teaching couple, it’s just really nice to teach as a couple – to have that support for each other. We have different qualities in the way we teach, different capabilities in what we remember, what we understand, the way we present things. I think it enriches the experience for our students—and for us—being a teaching couple.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: We have different qualities and different ways of approaching a question, so if questions arise within the group of students I’ll often listen with fascination to the answers that Ngakma Nor’dzin gives because she comes at a question from a different angle to me.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: I have the same experience.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: So as much as anything, I’ll be sitting here learning, being able to understand things in a different way. We are able to play—in a sense—with our relationship in terms of how we approach teaching. So we enjoy each other’s company, and the teachings that we can give are complementary. Also it can give one person the chance to rest and consider a situation in more depth, while the other person is answering perhaps the immediate question. So it enables us to work together in that way as well.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: It’s also very useful to me being a little bit deaf! So when i mis-hear a question that somebody asks me, and answer the wrong question, then Ngakpa-la can very gently say at the end ‘well that was a lovely answer, my dear, but that was not quite what was asked’, and then we can start again.

Consider all phenomena as dreamlike. 

A dog is a potential predator for a horse. Dog as predator is a perception. Dog innocently sharing the path is an alternative perception. Each is dreamlike as it appears, because interaction with the dog has not been engaged.  The skilful rider notices the dog and is prepared for a fearful reaction from the horse, or for the need to protect the horse if the dog is aggressive, or for nothing at all to happen. The rider makes no assumptions. To anticipate any reaction of dog or horse would be to give substance to the dreamlike potential of the moment. The rider neither joins the horse in its fearfulness, nor rejects the possibility that the dog could be an animal to be feared, nor ignores the dog assuming that it will just walk past. 

All are dreamlike appearances until something actually happens, and then what actually happens is ridden.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 38

http://ceffylau.blogspot.com/search/label/Ridgeway%20golf%20course

Buddhism is a religion

                   

Buddhism is a religion. It is a religion because it is always bigger than the individual and if followed there will be times when it becomes inconvenient. A philosophy is something that can be woven and adjusted when it becomes inconvenient. It is important to be clear that you are involved in a religion and it doesn’t function to say that Buddhism is a ‘way of life’ or ‘a particular psychological approach.’ 

Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6, page 7

Non-monastic Ordination in Tibetan Buddhism - Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin explain the principle of non-monastic ordination and the householder tradition.

Transcript

Ngakma Nor’dzin: I think the very public face of Buddhism—of Tibetan Buddhism—has been the monastic tradition – with the red robes and the shaven heads. So it’s rather important that we display this other tradition that existed and still exists in Tibet – which is the household tradition where we wear white skirts, and we don’t cut our scalp hair. This (cutting or not cutting scalp hair) relates to Sutra and Tantra. Sutrayana is the renunciate practice where you shave the head as a symbol of the fact that you are renouncing the world and you are entering into a monastic, celibate lifestyle. Whereas in the householder tradition, we are Vajrayana practitioners. This is the path of transformation, where we engage with everything in our ordinary lives as our practice.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: I think there’s a tendency to assume that the only options available to people—if you are going to be ordained—is to be ordained as a monk or a nun, and other than that there is ‘lay practice’. Here ‘lay’ is seen as being somewhat amateur. So it’s helpful to display the other possibilities. It is not that people can’t practice and gain realisation in their own home without any ordination at all—it (ordination) is not a requirement—but in order to show that there are other ordinations, we hold this ordination and we display the robes of this ordination so that people can see that there are other choices for people who feel drawn to taking vows. Then they could live within the vows of this aspect of practice.

Mahakala and Banana Leaf Knots - for re-stringing a tenga (mala, rosary)

Practice in the Vajrayana tradition includes mantra accumulation. The completion of a mantra accumulation is the recitation of one ’bum (100,000) for each syllable of the mantra. Most practitioners use a tenga (phreng ba, Skt. mala) for this practice, and inevitably it will need re-stringing occasionally.

Ngakma Nor’dzin was taught two beautiful and functional knots to use when restringing a tenga: the Mahakala knot and the Banana Leaf knot. She was taught these knots by Dharmendra of Hello Handicrafts in Kathmandu, Nepal.

At the Aro Ling Cardiff YouTube channel, Ngakma Nor’dzin has posted two videos explaining how to tie these knots.

The Mahakala Knot

The Banana Leaf Knot

Direct experience of who we are - Relaxing into Meditation

“By letting go of thought we can discover the space of mind without thought. Through Letting Go the arising and dissolving of conceptual mind can be revealed as a wave that surges and breaks on the surface of the deep, still ocean of fundamental mind. Through discovering the quietness of fundamental mind we can gain direct experience of who we are, what we are and where we are, rather than trying to discover this through the ebb and flow of concept.”

Relaxing into Meditation, Ngakma Nor'dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, 978-1898185178, p80,