As warriors we have to live with honour, boldness, and integrity - Spacious Passion

 

Taking refuge in Dharma is placing our confidence in practice as a place of safety. This is redefining ‘safety’ as the challenge of practice. Once we become practitioners it is guaranteed that at some point practice will become inconvenient. We will wish to take the easy but less honest option; to make the half-hearted response; to indulge in believing that we have no responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves. But as practitioners, these are no longer available options.

As warriors we have to live with honour, boldness, and integrity. We cannot allow ourselves to slip into good-enough mediocrity. Our security in terms of realisation is absolutely guaranteed if we remain in the domain of practice. But the path of warriorship may be the harder and less comfortable choice. It may be the path that leads us into exposure and danger. The security of practice may be the least secure path in terms of referential personal safety and referential self-protection.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-0, chapter 9 Irrational Reason, page 215 and 216

 

Tonglen I - Secure your own mask - Battlecry of Freedom

 

A common phrase in Buddhism is that practice is engaged for the benefit of all sentient beings. Practitioners must remember that they themselves are included in all sentient beings. 

Tonglen is not a sacrificial practice. Wanting to free others of pain and be of benefit to them, does not require ignoring personal needs.
Practitioners take care of themselves, recognising that their health and welfare makes them more useful to others.

An everyday example of the wisdom of this approach is mentioned before flying in every aircraft safety presentation: secure your own mask before helping others.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 73

 

As practitioners we believe that we can change and that Dharma offers opportunities for change and liberation - Illusory Advice

 

Apprentice: I am very confused about myself. I seem to keep upsetting people and causing them pain. People seem to misunderstand me all the time.

Teachers: The way to let go of confusion is to practise. If you really practise then you will become a less complicated and more transparent person who is less likely to upset and hurt others.

When you look at other people, you may see that they are less greedy than you or have more generosity; less angry than you or have more clarity; that they are less compulsive than you or have more warmth and compassion; that they are less paranoid than you or have more active accomplishment; that they are less depressed than you or have more awareness. If you see this, then you can either believe that you are permanently trapped in your current state of mind, or that you can change.

 As practitioners we believe that we can change and that Dharma offers opportunities for change and liberation – so we practise.

 

page 58, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6

Mahasiddha Lu’ipa

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin tell the stories of the Mahasiddha Lu’ipa, during ‘Monday Meditations’ at Aro Ling Cardiff, July 4th 2022.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time); https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913, Passcode: 640389.

Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, with a short teaching in the middle. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff.

Mahasiddhas Subhadra and Kankaripa

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin tell the stories of the Mahasiddhas Subhadra and Kankaripa, during ‘Monday Meditations’ at Aro Ling Cardiff, June 27th 2022.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time); https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913, Passcode: 640389.

Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, with a short teaching in the middle. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff.

Mahasiddha Vinapa

Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin tell the stories of the Mahasiddha Vinapa, during ‘Monday Meditations’ at Aro Ling Cardiff, June 20th 2022.

Monday Meditations: 7 - 8:30 pm (UK time); https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85249620913, Passcode: 640389.

Do join us for silent sitting and yogic song, with a short teaching in the middle. Everyone is welcome.

To see all videos with Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/AroLingCardiff.

Refuge: We seek protection from the neurotic tendencies which we employ in order to prevent us experiencing the natural state.

 

The dictionary defines the word refuge as ‘shelter or protection from danger or trouble: an asylum or retreat’. We have looked at the nature of the danger or threat to which we are vulnerable with regard to The Four Thoughts. 

In the context of our lives as Buddhists, we seek protection from our own conceptual minds: from our compulsion to dualistically split reality; from our addiction to conditioned responses rooted in dualistic preconceptions. We seek protection from the neurotic tendencies which we employ in order to prevent us experiencing the natural state.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-0, chapter 9 Irrational Reason, page 210