Welcome to the Ngndro Gar

Welcome to the Ngndro Gar. Beginning the ngndro is a significant moment on your path
to enlightenment, as it is the entrance into the Vajrayana. At this point you have heard the
teachings, reflected critically on them, and seen their relevance to your own lived experience.
Grounding in shamatha and vipashyana meditation has provided you with insight into the
workability of your own mind, you have developed some trust in the basic goodness of your
own being. With this discovery, you have developed some kindness towards yourself and all
the others in your world. You have become a follower of the Mahayana. Finally, and most
importantly, you have met a great teacher, who you have taken as your guide and guru.

The guru will inspire you to discover the innate purity and goodness of our outer and inner
reality, and he will empower your practice of the Vajrayana. To properly enter this path and
to become a vehicle for actual and genuine experience and realisation, you have now decided
to undertake the practice of the Ngndro - the Vajrayana Preliminary Practices. When
beginning the path of the Ngndro Gar (NDG) under the guidance of Dzongsar Jamyang
Khyentse Rinpoche, you join a community of fellow practitioners, some of which may also
serve as your instructors. As instructors, we would like to welcome you, and we will try to
assist you in your noble undertaking.

Motivation and the Ngndro Gar Practice

In our case of practicing the NDG, our teacher is Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche.
Rinpoche has requested us to create the structure for those wishing to enter the path of
liberation and omniscience, and he called it Ngndro Gar (NDG). The Tibetan word Gar
means nomadic encampment. So while we do not have any physical headquarters, we are
a living community of practitioners, spread all over. To some extent, the NDG takes over from
the earlier structure of the Dharma Das, where we already have a substantial community of
practitioners.

The team of NDG instructors are available to assist you with the practicalities of the Ngndro
Gar. We are all fellow students of Rinpoche, and merely serve as assistants. You can choose
to have a personal instructor, or you can choose to just rely on Rinpoches blessing, and merely
consult the website for practical guidance, or a mix of both it is your choice. The instructors
have been carefully selected, so you can trust them, and you will most likely find it helpful to
relate to someone who knows the path and who, gradually, also gets to know you. In the
modern world, we are used to acquiring information through books and classroom learning,
but Buddhadharma is more than gathering information: it is about awakening and
compassion. Here, the human element of apprenticing with others who have had some
experience as apprentices themselves might prove extremely valuable.
In undertaking the practice of ngndro, you should be determined to complete its practice.
You need to recognise its great significance, and cultivate a firm resolve to practice and
complete it. In practicing the ngondro, you strive to be proactive in removing the delusion
that drives the suffering of ourselves and all sentient beings, and you are becoming heir and
apprentice to the lineage of your guru and the victorious ones. As you further consolidate and
increase that recognition, the guru and the lineage will become increasingly manifest in your
experience. With the practice of ngondro, you will come to share the gurus vision and learn
the culture of practice of your lineage ancestry.

In practicing the NDG, you have various options in terms of time - two hours daily, one hour
daily, and 30 min daily. But you should be clear right from the start that you need to prioritise
this very highly. If you have demanding work, responsibilities for family, etc. you need to go
to bed early so you can rise early. You cannot simply add ngondro practice to your existing
activities. You need to eliminate other activities to fit this in. You need to make what you are
doing clear to your family and friends, and those that require your care, since this needs their
acceptance and support. You need to re-assure them what you are doing is a very respectable
undertaking; not an escape from the world, not a self-centered spiritual quest, but a journey
intended to get to the bottom of what causes delusion and suffering in this world. And so it
needs to be given priority by both yourself and by the others who live with you.

All along the way, your guru will be with you. Not as a babysitter, nor in some supernatural
way. Rather, as much as you practice wholeheartedly, that much the gurus presence and
blessing will permeate your being. Supplicating the guru, there is the sense of relying on him,
and the attitude that he will remove your obstacles and enhance your experience and
realisation.

You can choose to either practice the Longchen Nyingtik Ngndro or the Chetsun Nyingtik
Ngndro. They both are the preparation for the view and practice of the Great Perfection, with
the Longchen Nyingtik emphasising the combined Ati, or Dzogchen, teachings of
Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra as they come through Longchen Rabjam and Rigzin Jigme
Lingpa, and the Chetsun Nyingtik emphasising the Ati teachings of Vimalamitra, as they
come through Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo.

In addition to the five practices of the ngondro, Rinpoche has conceived and developed a
modality of Dharma Culture that serves to inform and guide our integration of the practice.
Previously, elements of this modality could be found in the Dharma Das path. These elements
of study and practice serve to organically integrate the teaching in our everyday life. In fact,
persons grown up in Buddhist cultures would already be familiar with aspects of these
practices. However, it should be noted that these practices are about cultivating a culture of
practice, and are certainly not cultural practices. These practices give a guidance in how to
proceed with our apprenticeship within the tradition, and are entirely directed to our objective
- enlightenment. The details on Dharma Culture are to be found in another document.

In terms of structure, the ngndros of the Longchen Nyingtik and the Chetsun Nyingtik are
similar. There is a common preliminaries section in both, with several contemplations that
serve to transform our values and priorities, and there is the special preliminaries
section which provides the essential foundations for the Vajrayana path.

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