These ‘one-liners’ by Tarchin were recorded by David French.  They were mainly gathered from classes at the 2005 Wangapeka School of Living Dharma program.  May they spark myriad flows of contemplation and enquiry.

We are nothing – with total responsibility.

How you resolve the irresolvable is the shape of your awakening.

Don’t get married, be engaged!

Languaging is not so much a way of communicating information as it is a way for the larger organism to keep in touch with itself.

We struggle our way to awakening.

See what’s there, not what’s not there.

A moment of confusion is not a dull, overcast vision of clarity; it’s an absolutely clear vision of confusion.

The world is our study and retreat center.

The important thing is not to meditate, but to value things like easeful wonderment, stability, and the strengthening of seeing and experiencing (which is, of course, what meditation consists of).

Is budding what a flower does, or is?

Are we in a state of being or a state of becoming?

The study of Buddhadharma is the study of relationships.

Where there are two, there is knowing.

‘Direct awareness’ doesn’t mean you don’t have concepts; it means you know a concept is a concept.

Meditations are to liberate wonder and curiosity.

It’s all right to be a failure, to have worked on something for ten years without resolving it, as long as you are using this to practice and strengthen love.

Never try not to do something; engage in what you are doing.

You’re liberated by what you do, not by what you don’t do.

Not doing is conceptual; doing is real and workable.

The issue is not whether something is right or wrong, but whether it is working in terms of serving well-being.

Mindfulness in the form of alertness and vigilance is not the same as mindfulness in the form of curiosity and investigation.

The suffering of samsara is the suffering of comparison.

Your concepts are always frozen; your body is not.

You transmit the Dharma to others to the extent it is your life.

The only meditation there is, is to be present.

Real blessing is increased flow.

The greater the impermanence, the greater the love.

Impermanence is interbeingness seen in the expanse of time; interbeingness is impermanence seen in the expanse of space.

If you have a vast view and enter into meditation, you will have a vast awakening.

If the path of awakening is not sensible, it’s not a path of awakening – the path of awakening is an increasing ability to sense.

Being present means having all the senses going.

The activity of languaging is where two beings couple for a cooperative purpose.

Everything in the universe is a process of other things.

We need to be totally interconnected with other beings who are also totally interconnected but have agendas of their own.

A system that is emitting and gathering touches another system that is emitting and gathering in a way that is understood through the senses.

Through sensing, sangha (community) comes into being.

Without other, there would be no sense.

There isn’t a duality or a singularity, just different ways of perceiving the mystery.

You can’t afford to study Dharma if you’re not backed up by a huge valuing of what we call bodhicitta.

The vaster the appreciation, the less the anchoring.

As you grow into a new being, you grow into a new past.

Purification of the mind-door is the whole of what Buddhadharma is about.

Exploration is the essence of the path of Dharma.

Our constructs of reality are built on the shoulders of insane people.

Love is in the risk of losing oneself in detail – it’s in detail that we find the love.

Your life is your path of awakening.

Let concepts emerge through connections rather than trying to force connection through concepts.

Sunyata is not a state to realize but an activity of freedom.

The universe is silent; consciousness is endowing it with sound.

Awakening is connected with the flexibility of engagement.

Everyone can be a shaman for someone else.

Communication is a process by which two entities participate in their unity.

All communication is happening within the unity.

To learn something is to change.

In approaching Dharma, don’t worship the tools.

We are just connections.

You don’t teach people; others learn from you.

All states of suffering are part and parcel of non-awareness.

Nobody is awakened by admiring the good traits of anyone else.

Don’t focus on feeling generous – just give.

First you give attention; then you give way.

Our job is to live well in the mystery we’ve just woken up into.

The path of Dharma is learning.

The experience called “I” is a doing.

Engaged presence is love.

A wise being is someone who has given up trying to be someone other than who they are.

Can I be a sangha of one for others?

You will be liberated by knowing and engaging in what you’re doing, not by fussing about what you’re not doing.

Know what you’re doing.

Your experience is your path of awakening.

The brain thinks you into being.

Can you enter into a state of divine uncertainty?

When you lose the plot, follow the instructions; when you are the plot, allow the universe to explore.

All problems have some aspect of the absence of interest.

Perhaps when we totally know what it’s like to question, that’s the awakened state.

You can’t push insight; real insight comes from allowing.

In meditation, you’re studying how to be with the unknown, how to walk into unknown territory.

We’re learning how to be with this powerful stranger called “here”.

The real revolution is to come into this place where everything is interesting.

The path of awakening is increasing recognition of what’s happening.

What’s needed is not heroic spiritual qualities; what’s needed is honesty.

A lot of psychopathology is falling into insight with no support.

Meditation is about constantly finding ways of being fresh and awake, not about gluing to a technique and then fighting boredom or the desire of the mind to shift.

We need to experience the personal as more universal and the universal as more personal.

Ethics must evolve from clear seeing; the reverse is a recipe for disaster.

The practice of peace in oneself is a far more ethical action than criticizing the behavior of others.

Seeing the infinite diversity of all things is love; seeing their profound unity is wisdom.