Apprenticeship and the Vajra Master - Ngakma Nor'dzin and 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 in terms of the rôles of Spiritual Friend and Vajra Master.

 

Ngakma Nor’dzin: Apprenticeship holds an interesting place in regards the relationship with the Lama, because it’s a little bit more than the Spiritual Friend but it isn’t the Vajra Master. So when one becomes an apprentice you are not making a commitment at the level of the Vajra Master – that you will commit to anything they ask you, you will undertake any instruction they give you. There is still this feeling of them being a spiritual friend but with the potential of them being the Vajra Master.

Apprenticeship is perhaps a little bit unusual there, in that it treads this line between the two. A Spiritual Friend is somebody who offers you general advice from the perspective of the teachings. They don’t teach so much with personality – the qualities of personality don’t come into that so much. It's not so individuated. The teaching stems from the teachings themselves. This is the Sutrayana approach.

For instance: a Sutric teacher may have hundreds and hundreds of students and this functions perfectly from the point of view of a Spiritual Friend because the teachings themselves are the relationship and you don’t individuate the teachings per person – you just teach in a general sense.

Now the Tantric teacher, the Vajra Master, teaches almost entirely individually. Even though they’re teaching general Tantric teachings, the relationship of the individual apprentice with those teachings will be quite personal and will be personally overseen by the Vajra Master. But as I say, apprenticeship is somewhere between those. There is the quality of personal relationship there but it’s not so extreme that one takes the presence, personality and life circumstances display of the Lama as one’s path. This happens later when one takes ordination.

Vajrayana has to be tasted with an open heart and an open mind - Illusory Advice

 

The purpose of apprenticeship is to taste a unique depth of experience and involvement in a Vajrayana tradition without taking lifelong commitments. You can leap, but with the lifebelt of your probationary apprentice status. ….

You cannot know whether you are going to really like a cake unless you taste it. If you look at it and feel uncertain, or smell it and think that it doesn’t seem so good, but never actually taste it – you will never know what it tastes like. Vajrayana has to be tasted. So we would encourage you to use the probationary period to taste Vajrayana through this Lineage as thoroughly as possible. Taste with an open heart and an open mind. 

Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6, pp22-23

 

Relax and make a loud sound - Relaxing into Meditation

 

It is important to let the voice flow naturally – to be open and relaxed, and to allow the voice its natural boldness and freedom. It is actually more difficult to sing quietly than to sing loudly, so relax and allow yourself to make a loud sound.

Relaxing into Meditation, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-898185-17-8, p23

 

Technical Language and Practice - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

 

sPyan ras gZigs

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin and Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin explain why there is technical language in Buddhism.

 

Transcript

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: I think Buddhism can become complicated and can appear to go beyond what anyone would want to engage with. But it’s almost like any discipline: it will have its specialised language that from an outsider’s point of view you think, ‘Do i really need to know that?’ And then it’s really a case of how keen you are on doing that thing. So if we want to learn to play the guitar, your guitar teacher could talk in terms of technicalities that are absurd for the beginner, whereas all you want to know is that if you put your fingers by there, and you run your other fingers down there, you get a sound. You do that a few times and you start to get something that almost sounds like the song. So when you begin anything that’s what you want. Your riding teacher says, ‘Sit on the horse.’ They won’t necessarily engage with the names of all the different belts, buckles, straps and bindings that exist on the horse – they’re just getting you started. Then, if you become an enthusiast in that, you’ll want to learn more.

Ngakpa Nor’dzin: I remember when I first started reading Buddhist books on Tibetan Buddhism, I couldn’t believe that they really said these words like ...

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: ... like ‘Spyanraszigs’...

Ngakma Nor’dzin: ... for Chenrezig. I thought, ‘Nobody could possibly speak like this’, and I used to just skim over all those words. It’s probably why my Tibetan’s so bad! It doesn’t have to be that complicated. Silent sitting is very simple, very basic, very easy to understand the principal and function of that practice.

Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin: And then anything else, if any other areas of exploration particularly take your fancy, you can go into them. I think it’s actually quite liberating to know that Buddhism is far too big for one person to master it all. Once you know that the scope of Buddhism is so huge you’re not going to master it all, you then understand that it’s a set of methods, a set of practices. It’s an environment of practice where you do what is appropriate, and if you have a teacher you act within your teacher’s guidance and instruction, to use the methods that you need rather than trying to master an entire field of possibilities.

Alive in the present moment - Spacious Passion

 

The important thing to recognise is the present moment. If we are alive in the present moment then past loss or future loss are irrelevant; past potential moment of death and future potential moment of death are also irrelevant. Whenever death occurs, be it in sixty seconds’ time or in sixty years’ time, the moment of death will be now. It will happen in the present moment – whenever that is. Our experience of death or loss will be felt in that present moment of time. 

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-4-0, chapter 5 Infinite Impermanence, p122

Breathing in is receiving whatever circumstances offer without prejudice or filter - Battlecry of Freedom

Breathing in is receiving whatever circumstances offer without prejudice or filter. Breathing out is the opportunity for a natural response based in awareness of whatever the circumstances require. 

Breathing in, practitioners allow whatever is perceived to define them in that moment – they are empty in relation to what is received. Breathing out, practitioners enable an appropriate response to arise free of self-support and self-protection – they are empty in relation to what is needed. Breathing in is receptive concavity in response to the convexity of other. Breathing out is appropriate convexity in response to the concavity of other.  

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p60 

 

Sutra Tantra and Dzogchen - Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin

 

In this video from February 2010, Ngakma Nor’dzin explains the the three yanas of Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen.

Ngakma Nor’dzin: From the Dzogchen point of view there are the three yanas of Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen. Sutra is the renunciate path, so the base of the path is the experience of unsatisfactoriness. The path is to renounce the causes that we see for that, such as desire and anger, and the result is the experience of emptiness. Emptiness is seen as the fruit of the path of Sutra, whereas in Tantra emptiness is seen as the base of the path of Tantra. So we begin with that.

Now some people would say: “How can you begin with that unless you fully practise the path of Sutra?” But one can experience emptiness through devotion to the Lama, or through one’s empty experience of engaging with the preliminary practices of Tantra. With the traditional preliminary practices such as prostrations and mandala offerings, of which you practise a hundred thousand, one experiences a quality of emptiness simply through flinging yourself on the floor going up and down up and down a hundred thousand times. It’s an extraordinary thing to do – “Why am I doing this? I’m getting all sweaty and hot.” It takes up a lot of time and one has to let go of something in order to engage in and complete that path.

A very direct way of experiencing emptiness is in relationship to the Lama. If you meet a Tantric teacher who inspires you, who you feel you have confidence in, you can engage in the path with that person. Then one’s sense of devotion is an experience of emptiness because you’re able to put aside your own rationale and enter into being open to what they teach. In the path of Tantra we don’t separate ourselves off from all the things in the world that might produce unhelpful emotions. We engage with those as the energy of the path, so that we can transform them into the experience of non-duality – and non-duality is the fruit of the path of Tantra.

Now in Dzogchen, the base, the path and the fruit of Dzogchen are all the same. They are all non-duality. They are all the spontaneous experience of non-duality. Here it becomes very clear that a relationship with a teacher is totally essential, because the teacher introduces you to the experience of non-duality. Now this can be done in a formal way through pointing-out instructions, Dzogchen empowerment. But this can also happen in an informal way of just being with your teacher and just discovering the view through entering into the relationship with your teacher. You may be doing very mundane tasks like helping them cook the dinner, and there’s something about the quality of that experience, or something that is said in casual conversation, that shifts your view so you have a direct experience of the non-dual state. And then, once one has had that experience, one has to remain there without doubt – one has to have confidence in that experience. Allow the flickering of that experience to increase through one’s practice and then eventually you arrive at a point where you can simply continue.