“We practise and we work with whatever arises─ without attempting to convert the disorderly nature of existence into something more regimented.”
“We exist in continual flux. We move, and are moved, in the dance of appearances─ in the limitless pattern of creation and destruction. The perceptible and imperceptible seem to make each other a mystery.”
“We have to be the ‘peace and quiet’ rather than expecting the world to supply it.”
“Without this ‘wearying world’ we cannot find enlightenment. Without the responses we would be bereft of the fabulous friction which illuminates our Buddha nature.”
“Worry is the mind’s attempt to stay safe.”
“This physical manifestation shimmers between wonderment and bewilderment.”
“Death, impermanence, things that go wrong, laughter, colour, autumn leaves, light sparkling in puddles, cars breaking down, relationships ending, falling in love – all are the play of existence, the movement and change that is reality. It is only experienced as unsatisfactory when we try to stop movement and change, or see movement and change as painful. Once we have a real understanding of the cause of our experience of samsara as unsatisfactory, we can engage with it in a light-hearted manner. We play with our life experience, rather than feeling like a victim of our circumstances.”
“Emptiness is the essence of being. It is this emptiness which allows us to manifest. Emptiness is the most salient quality of what we are─it is the ground of being. Energetic being arises from this emptiness as the play of energy, and material being arises from this energy as the play of form.”
“We are the dance of existence and non-existence. Unless we know this─Tantra is impossible. But, whether we understand it or not─Tantra is continually performing itself; it is what is happening.”
“Because Tantra is constantly performing itself─in us, through us, and around us─we can either acknowledge it, by taking hold of the bare electric cables of existence and non-existence, or try to pretend, as hard as possible, that it’s not happening.”
“We all question our lives at certain moments. This is somewhat unavoidable. Our beginningless enlightenment continually sparkles through, and causes us the irritation of wanting to question what is going on. This happens at various junctures in our lives; and when it does, we are confronted with the inconvenient fact that we are somehow symbols of ourselves. We’re not completely certain that we’re the real thing.”
“Trust and respect are the emptiness and form of romance”
“The Lama is the ecstatic, wild and gentle figure who short-circuits your systems of self-referencing. The Lama is the only person in your life who cannot be manipulated. The Lama is the invasion of unpredictability you allow into your life, to enable you to cut through the convolutions of interminable psychological and emotional processes. The Lama is the terrifyingly compassionate gamester who reshuffles the deck of your carefully arranged rationale.”
“To receive empowerment is to be struck by lightning in the gentlest possible manner. To be burnt by searing kindness into nothing but what you actually are . . . To wake up, softly startled, at one vivid moment in time. To realise that you have been asleep; and, that suddenly you are both older than the earth and younger than you can remember.”
“If there was no sadness in loss, there would have been no joy prior to it ─– but that sadness does not have to be permanent.”
“Impermanence is a cause for celebration. Impermanence is our opportunity to discover presence. Present moments are infinite. They will never end. We will never cease to have opportunities to start again. We will never cease to have opportunities to experience presence.”
“Always put the possibility of joy before the need to be safe.”
Ngak’chang Rinpoche
The Four Reliances:
Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality;
Rely on the meaning, not just on the words;
Rely on the real meaning, not just the provisional one;
rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary, judgmental mind.
The Buddha