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
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
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. 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.
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.
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.
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
