Illusory Advice: Total immersion

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.

p22, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2016, 978-1-898185-37-6

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Please see the Aro Books worldwide website for more information about Illusory Advice.

Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin are the primary teachers at Aro Ling Cardiff.

Illusory Advice: Pure... impure?

"Tantra begins with the experience of emptiness – the pregnant space from which form arises. Form is simply that which arises – and does not need to be viewed in terms of pure or impure. Human bodies are as they are and are available for appreciation. Samsara is not a separate existence to nirvana. They are the same experience – it is view that changes."

p21, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2016, 978-1-898185-37-6

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Please see the Aro Books worldwide website for more information about Illusory Advice.

Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin are the primary teachers at Aro Ling Cardiff.

Illusory Advice: Are animals enlightened?

Q: Are animals more enlightened than us? They don’t seem to separate themselves from reality and so I wondered therefore whether they exist in a nondual state, reacting instantly with events as they occur?

A: The directness of interaction with their environment that you perceive in animals is instinctive rather than realised. It may be useful to draw a distinction here between living in the physical form of an animal and living in the animal-realm. Having a physical animal form does not necessarily mean that such a being always dwells in the animal-realm. We have met horses—for example—who certainly possess a sense of humour, which would usually be regarded as a human characteristic. We have heard of animals and birds who create and manipulate tools, and of others who display acts of selflessness and kindness. Such characteristics might suggest that these animals may in fact dwell in the human-realm – at least in part.

p10, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor'dzin & Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2016, 978-1-898185-37-6

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Please see the Aro Books worldwide website for more information about Illusory Advice.

Ngakma Nor'dzin and Ngakpa 'ö-Dzin are the primary teachers at Aro Ling Cardiff.