Dharma teachers continually emphasise the need to practice. Dharma must be practised. We must engage in the methods it offers in order to arrive even at the initial stages of awakening. ‘Awakening’ is what is offered by Dharma. We are offered the opportunity to awaken from our delusion, from our limited view. To engage with practice requires a degree of belief and acceptance of the view and methods offered.
We cannot experience awakening without having recognised, to whatever degree, that we are asleep. We cannot awaken without engaging in the methodology involved with awakening. This is not to say that Dharma is the only religion that offers effective and tested methods of awakening. It is simply that this is a book written by a Dharma practitioner, about Dharma, and so will inevitably speak from that perspective. I make no apology for my bias. I love the path of Vajrayana Buddhism, and I wish to offer a glimpse of the opportunities it continually offers me. The experiences to which I refer, and upon which I rely, are a natural expression of my own life and practice rather than an argument in favour of Vajrayana above all other religions.
[Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Spacious Passion by Ngakma Nor’dzin]