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The Aro gTér is a lineage within the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. It is a ngagpa or non-monastic lineage. All of its contemporary teachers are ethnically non-Tibetan.
Teachings and practice
The Aro gTér has several distinctive characteristics: it treats all Buddhist subjects from point of view of Dzogchen; as a consequence its practices are simpler than the elaborate sadhanas typical of Tantric Buddhism; and it includes practices of semde and longde as well as the more common menngagde.
Pervasive Dzogchen approach
Main article: DzogchenDzogchen is the most important yana in Aro. The lower yanas (Sutrayana and Tantrayana) are re-presented in Dzogchen terms, and take on its characteristic style of simplicity, clarity, and expansiveness. Because, from the Dzogchen point of view, Enlightenment needs only to be recognized and is not produced by artificial means, Aro is primarily concerned with bringing meditative awareness into ordinary life. No Aro practices involve elaborate, intellectual or lengthy liturgical chanting.
The Heart Sutra and the Sutra of the Owl-Headed Dakini
As in Dzogchen generally, understanding of the relationships between form, emptiness, and non-duality is central to Aro. Unusually, Aro takes the Heart Sutra (conventionally part of Mahayana rather than Dzogchen) as the central text on this topic. The Heart Sutra's statement that "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" is regarded as the essence of the matter.
Within the Aro gTér, the Sutra of the Owl-Headed Dakini (Wylie: 'ug gdong snying thig mkha' 'gro mdo; Sanskrit: Ulukha-mukha Dakini Upadesha Sutra) treats the major topics of Sutrayana from point of view of Dzogchen. It includes unusual presentations of the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path, and of the Five Precepts. The Five Precepts are said to have inner meanings at the level of Dzogchen, as follows:
| Sutrayana presentation | Aro presentation |
|---|---|
| To refrain from killing sentient beings. | To refrain from killing the efflorescence of rigpa as it sparkles through the fabric of duality. |
| To refrain from stealing. | To refrain from stealing opportunities for realization. |
| To refrain from sexual misconduct. | To remain always in ecstatic embrace with the khandro or pawo. |
| To refrain from lying. | To refrain from expressing the lie of dualism. |
| To refrain from intoxicants. | To refrain from the intoxication of duality, and to become drunken with primordial wisdom. |
Essential Tantric practice
Aro describes its Tantric practices as "essential," meaning that they lack the typical complexities of Tantra (elaborate mandala visualizations, extensive sadhana texts, and lengthy rituals). This is viewed as a reflection of the simple style of the Indian Mahasiddhas in the earliest days of Tantra.
In terms of the two Inner Tantras not counting Dzogchen, Aro is concerned primarily with Anuyoga, emphasizing tsa lung and completion practice rather than with Mahayoga, which emphasizes ritual performance and generation practice. As in the Anuyoga style generally, yidams are not practiced with a textual sadhana, but by self-arising with mantra. The practice of lhatong, from the semde ngöndro (see below), is also viewed as encompassing Tantra, so that accomplishing lhatong has the same value as accomplishing Tantric sadhana.
Vajrayana and the arts
Vajrayana and art are closely connected in Tibetan Buddhist history. Vajrayana teachers such as Chögyam Trungpa, bringing Buddhism to the West, emphasized art as Buddhist practice. In keeping with this tradition, Aro gTér teachers present art and appreciation as correlated aspects of Buddhist practice. Artistic creativity is taught as an integrative method for opening the sense fields to a richer appreciation of life: "Usually we would not associate the idea of emptiness with the idea of creativity. Usually we think there has to be some sort of 'something' there, upon which creativity feeds."
Aro teaches art and Tantra in terms of each other; "every Tantrika is an artist of some kind because we have sense fields, we have senses, and appreciating the sense fields makes you an artist."
The Aro apprenticeship program encourages artistic, creative endeavor. Apprentice crafts include:
- creating ritual items such as kanglings
- creating or restoring Tantric musical instruments such as chöd drums and bells
- sewing and embroidery work as in the creation of wall appliqués and chöd drum tails
- weaving nam’kha
"Tantric Buddhism employs what is called ‘symbolic activity’ to engage with our emotional and perceptual aspects. Symbolic activity includes such things as ceremony or ceremonial craftwork, artwork, music and dance."
In 2009, New York Arts Magazine published an interview by Tchera Niyego with Ngak’chang Rinpoche under the title ‘Speaking with the Ravens.’ In the article Ngak’chang Rinpoche talks about the special relationship between Vajrayana and art, and the connection between the meditative state and creativity.
Ngak’chang Rinpoche teaches a style of thangka painting unconstrained by celibate ethics. Aro apprentices specialising in thangka painting or calligraphy attend an annual thangka painting school in Wales.
The Aro gTér also emphasizes Yang (Wylie: dByangs) or Dzogchen Gardang (Wylie: rDzogs chen sGar gDangs) "yogic song," a mainly Dzogchen practice. Yogic songs are short texts (such as mantras) set to melodies, and sung repeatedly. The practice of yogic song in the Aro gTér is to 'find presence of awareness in the dimension of sound' and differs to liturgical chant (Wylie: dön pa) common in other Tibetan Buddhist lineages.
Emotions and Trekchöd
Aro teaches the Dzogchen system of the five elemental neuroses (territoriality, aggression, neediness, anxiety, and depression) and five corresponding wisdoms (generosity, clarity, compassionate appreciation, accomplishment, and unboundedness). It teaches both Tantric methods of transforming the neuroses into wisdoms and the Dzogchen trekchöd method of liberating neuroses into their natural condition.
Semde
Dzogchen encompasses three "series," or approaches: semde, longde, and men-ngag-de. Historically all three were important, but in recent centuries men-ngag-de has largely displaced the other two, as it is considered more advanced. Aro includes material in all three series.
According to Ngakpa Chogyam and Khandro Dechen, semde the series of the nature of mind, is the most approachable series, because it contains a ngöndro or "preparation" consisting of four meditation practices that bring the student to level of experience required to practice Dzogchen proper. These are shi-nè, lhatong, nyi-mèd, and lhundrüp. Shi-nè ("calm abiding") is the meditation practice that leads to the experience of emptiness, and corresponds to Sutrayana. Lhatong ("further vision") leads to the experience of form arising from emptiness, and corresponds to Tantrayana. Nyi-mèd ("non-duality") produces the recognition of the sameness of emptiness and form. Lhundrüp ("spontaneity") is the experience of enlightenment itself. Together these may be summarized as "spacious appreciation of the sense fields."
Longde and sKu-mNyé
Main article: Aro sKu-mNyéLongde, the Series of Space, is concerned primarily with the experience of the tsa lung system or "energetic body." It contains various systems of physical exercises that produce unusual sensations in which the practitioner may find rigpa. Aro sKu-mNyé is one such.
Aro sKu-mNyé is a set of 111 exercises divided into six series, the movements of the lion, the vulture, the tiger, the eagle, the garuda, and the dragon. They range from simple and gentle to vigorous and extremely difficult. They disorient the conceptual mind and galvanize the body's subtle energies, in order to give access to non-ordinary experience. The system is also taught as a general exercise regimen to non-Buddhists, and for other non-religious benefits, rather as hatha yoga is.
Romance as Buddhist practice
One of the Tantric samaya (vows) is for men always to regard women as the embodiment of wisdom and never to disparage them. Aro, with a predominance of female practitioners, makes the symmetry explicit: women vow to regard men as the embodiment of compassion and never to disparage them. The Aro Tantra of the Mirror that Reflects the Sun and Moon of the Khandros and Pawos discusses the consequences of this Tantric vow from point of view of men-ngag-de. It describes perceptual practices that are possible only within the context of romantic relationship.
Lineage history
According to the claims of Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro has antecedents in a "Mother Essence Lineage" of female tertöns stretching back to Yeshe Tsogyal and forward to Khandro Yeshé Réma (1886-1923), who discovered it.
Ngakpa Chögyam claims he was recognised as an incarnation of Aro Yeshe's predecessor, 'a-Shul Pema Legden, by Chime Rindzin.
In the 1970s, Ngakpa Chögyam studied with Chime Rindzin, Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, Khamtrül Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche and Konchog Rinpoche. Ngakpa Chögyam wrote of his experiences of these times in his 2011 book Wisdom Eccentrics.
References
- Simmer-Brown, Judith (2001). Dakini's warm breath : the feminine principle in Tibetan Buddhism (1st ed. ed.). Boston: Shambhala. p. 196. ISBN 1-57062-720-7.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help) - ^ Melton, J Gordon (2010). Religions of the world a comprehensive encyclopedia of beliefs and practices (2nd ed. ed.). Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. p. 196. ISBN 9781598842043.
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- ^ Rawlinson, Andrew (1997). The book of enlightened masters : Western teachers in Eastern traditions (1. print. ed.). Chicago, Ill. : Open Court. ISBN 978-0812693102.
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- Chögyam Ngakpa (2011). Wisdom Eccentrics. Aro Books, Inc. ISBN 978-0965394864.