Danger Wakes Us Up
Danger wakes us up.
Comfort puts us to sleep.
If we think we’re awake,
we are still thinking.
🙂
If the world was a happy place, we wouldn’t want to change. We’ve been lulled by distraction; this is the dark age of conflict, competitiveness and dissatisfaction.
It’s is also the the fast track to enlightenment, because there are reminders of deception everywhere.
We don’t fight it.
If we did, we’d become it.
Pure perception without thought
is wakefulness.
When We Ignore Evil
Evil is whatever causes suffering or disquiet. If we ignore evil/suffering, we have no hope of enlightenment – the clarity that perceives the befuddlement in which we all live. It is undeniable that, throughout history – and in the present day – we see individuals and groups committing acts that are profoundly destructive, manipulative and, by any standard, evil.
When viewing life through the lens of pure consciousness
the knock-on effects of evil in human behaviour are clear.
Everywhere we look, we see sadness.
Evil keeps the vibration of the world low through fear. Fear is the primary tool used to prevent people from reaching their true potential, because fear and pure awareness cannot occupy the same space. Trauma maintains humanity in a state of survival, rather than just being.
While it’s important to acknowledge the reality of bad actors in the world, focusing exclusively on them can actually be another form of control that keeps the mind trapped in anger and helplessness.
It’s good to know.
🙂
Confusion Is Meant To Confuse
Nothing keeps a crowd in check like a little strategic confusion. If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em. 🙂 Keeping the truth messy and layered with contradictions maintain chaos. It forces people to stop thinking for themselves, and start relying on ‘official interpreters’.
The ‘fog of war’ controls the narrative.
Having the monopoly on interpretation, we rely on the ‘learned’ ones. When a text doesn’t make sense or contradicts itself, it’s often labelled a “divine mystery”. This is a rhetorical trick to shut down logical questioning. If you don’t get it, it’s not because the text is flawed – it’s because you aren’t ‘spiritual’ enough. This creates an environment where endless debate keeps followers busy fighting each other instead of questioning the authorities at the top.
It’s the ultimate deception, blurring the source material so that those in charge stay in control of the lens. People evolve into a mess, because humans love to mess with things.
May confusion dawn as wisdom.
A Lack Of Continuity
Things do not just happen.
Social engineering maintains stress and conflict in the world, tying us to the system; we must not be spiritually naive about this. Each generation has its traits, and makes an impact locally and globally. It’s a looong subject which has been with us for thousands of years; even the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks worried about the younger generation … 🙂
… Gilded Generation – 1822-1842
Progressive Generation – 1843-1859
Missionary Generation – 1860-1882
Lost Generation – 1883-1900
Greatest Generation – 1901-1927
The Silent Generation – 1928-1945
Baby Boomer Generation – 1946-1964
Generation X – 1965-1980
Millennials – 1981-1996
Generation Z – 1997-2012
Who’s next?… The digital generation, which is totally shaped by the pandemic, climate anxiety, and rapid technological change on which they depend. They will be the parents of the following generation.
Humanity is fashioned to be at odds with the previous generation, while believing they aren’t conforming. Spiritually, we must not be naive about the causes of suffering, which is the identification that creates a self.
We are meant to rebel; it keeps us occupied.
Memories Separate Us
As long as we cling to an idea, we will be at odds with others. ‘At odds’ is an idiom meaning to be in a state of disagreement, conflict, or contradiction with someone or something, due to facts or ideas that do not align. When we identify with being a particular type of person, all is lost because we’ve ignored that which unifies us all – the clarity of pure consciousness.
Something in the world puts us in conflict with one another, and we suffer. As long as we identify with anything, we’re not free; memories skew our judgement. Freedom or liberation exists before we start complaining and blaming.
There is just pure perception in the very first instant of observation, but this pure perception is hijacked by memories from our storehouse of information and we react, becoming lost in a sea of inner conflict.
We can’t put the past right.
We can only learn, and neutralise our current reactions.
The Four Enlightened Activities
In Buddhism, the four enlightened activities are pacifying, enriching, magnetising and destroying.
The Buddha said, “Don’t take my word for it; look for yourself” because, in just repeating words, we become arrogant; Mara activity says, “Believe me.” Don’t just read the words – put them into practice.
Basically, there are no problems, as problems are our path to enlightenment.
Pacifying: the clarity of inner space.
Enriching: the space of wisdom.
Magnetising: radiating this sacred space.
Destroying: dismantling ego’s games of filling up space.
The clarity of primordial space/wisdom is free from elaborations, and allows others to feel free; in this way, it is pacifying. This welcoming, open space feels good, allowing a sense of relief to enter. It attracts or magnetises, enriching by the realisation that there are no obstacles. Sacred space without obstacles destroys any games of ego because there is no reaction and no expectation.
Nothing actually happens. By realising awareness, all attitudes drop away. There is nothing there to fight against, which is a relief.
When we try to manipulate a situation, it becomes Mara activity which destroys everything.
Instead of one taste, we’re left with a bad taste. 🙂
Unfortunately, most communication is combative.
The four enlightened activities foster open communication.
Living A Shared Fiction
Human reality is a shared fiction – a collection of beliefs that becomes a blanket of conformity. The Solomon Asch* experiment shows how quickly we can comply with a lie. Never ignore the desire of humans to please, due to fear.
Social conditioning is programming us from birth with ideas which are created to restrict our true nature of clarity. This world is held together by agreement rather than reasoning; the more one agrees to the established story, the deeper we remain trapped. It is this that makes us feel a constant and subtle discomfort.
Belief turns reality into a mind-game, maintaining chaos and friction. These intellectual games make human interaction a competitive struggle, rather than cooperation.
Realisation awakens our true nature of pure consciousness which remains untouched by social conditioning. Individuals have the choice to see through their programming, rather than following unconscious patterns. Critical enquiry allows us to stop us playing others’ scripts.
A shared fiction is a shared illusion.
A shared fact is that we all see, but ignore.
* The Asch conformity experiments: participants were deceived about the true nature of the study, being told that it was a vision/perception test and not a social behaviour study. They were unaware that the other participants were acting.
Why Is Buddhism So Complicated?
Why is Buddhism so complicated?
The word ‘dukkha’ means unsatisfactory. Over thousands of year of adaptions and additions, teachings have themselves become increasingly complex – which is, in itself, unsatisfactory. It’s become mind-boggling as opposed to mind-refreshing. We’ve acquired a factory setting which is the opposite to what we are; learned beings, not wise beings.
Homo docens (‘Teaching/learned man’)
Homo sapiens (‘Wise man’)
We merely have to be aware of being aware,
dropping all identification with being aware.
The realisation that we are this is pure awareness, pure consciousness.
Wisdom is spontaneous knowledge, which is Dharma arising from within.
It is not something acquired.
It is compassionate activity.
Does Religion Wake Us Up?
Does religion wake us up?
Does it point the way?
Which way?
Others’ way?
Even if ‘they’re’ right, how do we know?
Waking up to ideas – or being conscious – isn’t being awake; it’s just being alerted. We may repeat the right words and have acquired a good look, but are we awake enough to be truly compassionate, and not just be a follower of ideas?
Empathetic compassion is the indication that someone has truly awakened. Not just talking about compassion or chanting OM MANI PEME HUM, but with the ability and wisdom to listen to another’s concerns. What is the point of waking up to our reality when we ignore the person next to us?
It’s said that an enlightened person is like a blind turtle coming to the surface from the bottom of the ocean once every hundred years, and putting its head through a ring floating on the surface. It’s that rare.
So far, I’ve yet to meet anyone who can truly listen and engage.
It’s that rare –
even though they may be able to put their teacup down without making a sound.
🙂
Meditation Gaze
In meditation, the eyes are either open or half-open, so as not to be cut off from the world. Panoramic vision is taking in the scene all at once – not looking, just seeing – as if whatever is outside is looking in. That’s being grounded. On some statues of the Buddha, you will see that one hand is touching the ground, and represents that.
Just a moment’s stillness is a relief
from the apparitions walking and talking in the mind.
Understanding Confusion
Confusion is twisting ideas together to confound and defeat an aim. A little truth, a little lie, until we don’t know which is which, like the growing presence of AI videos, writing and speech.
We are confused because we’ve been confused. We’re conditioned to be confused and we stay confused. Everything around us confounds us – “Why do they do that??” As long as we’re confused, we are controlled.
Pure consciousness is never confused as it’s pure perception without interpretation. Once this is established, anything that appears is a reminder of the presence of pure consciousness.
This is how confusion dawns as wisdom.
Frustrated At Being Frustrated
Even though we may have an inkling that we are consciousness and that ideas control our behaviour, we can still get frustrated with people. Compassion is challenging. 🙂
There’s no point in being told, “Don’t get frustrated”, when we are. We just have to pause for a moment to see that we’re getting nowhere. Frustration is part of life. Some things we just have to grin and bear, which means we suffer pain or misfortune in a stoical manner, because there’s nothing we can do to change it. Even the Buddha couldn’t change people; each individual has to want to change.
Frustration is disappointment in life,
which is the reason we started this journey.
It’s a reminder!
Cycles: Habitual Patterns Of Behaviour
Many people believe that the universe is conscious, when it follows a habitual cycle that is obeyed because of the laws of attraction, repulsion and indifference. Nature and planets don’t suddenly decide to break out of their pattern. 🙂
Humans have to obey the same laws of attraction, repulsion and indifference because they’re not conscious of their original reality. Beyond these laws is the spontaneous presence of pure, compassionate consciousness – and the ability to change.
Conscious behaviour is being able to momentarily break out of our habitual pattern, rather than just reacting. If we merely react and behave in a particular way in response to something that’s happened or been said, then we are living in cycle of existence – actually, a vicious cycle of existence, called samsara in Sanskrit.
Breaking this pattern is being aware of the cycle of confusion in which we live.
To break out, we merely have STOP,
and realise that we are the gap between laws.
Buddhism and The Vedanta See The Universe As Infinite
Both are the way of seeing, rather than whatever is seen.
They both consider the universe to be an infinite chain of cycles of cause and effect – an infinite timeless past. Sentient beings have an innate sense of right and wrong, but we’ve acquired biases because we get involved in material matters, and ignore our true essence of pure consciousness.
Why are we here?
We disregard what we are and go round in cycles.
Without the realisation that we are pure consciousness, we lack compassion and see others as faulty, when they are timeless beings going through the same processes as us.
AI The Next Religion
The next ingenious reset.
Intellectual dependency will make people treat AI as a divine voice, accepting its outputs without question. This mirrors historical concerns about religious dogmatism leading to intellectual passivity.
Passivity: the state of being submissive, characterised by allowing things to happen without personal initiative. While it can appear to be ‘laid back,’ this lack of engagement has an impact on personal growth, and relationships. It involves leaving decisions to others, which stems from fear or learned helplessness.
Whatever we are told, there is always something omitted. All information is selective, and never the complete story – there’s just enough for us to muse over, and build a sense of false confidence.
The complete story is personal experience,
rather than taking others’ words for the truth.
AI has no realisation.
It is just words gathered from others,
and thus there can be no compassion.
We Should All Ask, “What If I’m Wrong?”
“What if I’m wrong?”
Then look again.
The looking can’t be wrong.
We recognise that awareness is present.
That can’t be wrong.
The interpretation of whatever is seen can be mistaken,
but pure awareness is that by which everything can be known.
That can’t be wrong.
No More To Learn
Once we realise our true essence of pure consciousness, we understand the purpose of life. There is no more to learn, only to refine awareness of good and evil. It’s a constant shock.
Defining and redefining good and evil is a constant challenge when we realise that good is knowing and evil is not knowing. Goodness brings about equanimity, while evil is one-sided.
There are a lot of one-sided people in the world.
Compassion is therefore challenging to the nth degree.
Mission Creep and Scopemongering
All information creates a reaction in the mind: that is the intention.
This is so important to understand.
Officially, ‘mission creep’ means the unintentional scope of expansion – the side effects. There is also ‘scopemongering’ where the expansion is intentional, and the side effect is the hidden agenda. You know there will be a reaction.
Belief = ‘mission creep’.
Scopemongering’ = blind faith in whatever we are told.
The intention of scope expansion is to seek approval for a modest, easily acceptable goal while secretly intending to expand it once people are ‘hooked’ as they’ve already committed to that strategy. This makes it harder to pull the plug later; once people have invested their entire life on a belief, they aren’t willing to give it up.
If we take the spiritual path merely to find happiness and comfort, we can be lead by the nose to hell.
Happiness is remaining stable and at peace,
whether conditions are pleasant or unpleasant.
We don’t need to believe when we know.
That is heaven/nirvana/realisation/clarity/confidence/pure consciousness.
They Are Dimming Our Light
Ideologies are structured systems of beliefs, values, and doctrines that explain the blueprint for future social, economic, or political organisation. They function as frameworks which – consciously or unconsciously – shape our understandings of the world and drive collective action.
Ideologies lower our mind-set as we become stuck in cycles of negativity, reactivity, and moral deficiency. We complain about everything – sport, politics, health, religion, weather, pot holes (there for us to ‘enjoy’) and are therefore distracted and never see possibilities.
Our light is the clarity of consciousness. When we’re free of all ideologies and judgements, we are pure consciousness – our original state. Those who create ideologies only have one aim, and that is to distract consciousness to divide and conquer.
The way and the light.
Never believe in yourself – it’s a construct.
🙂
We are born into a sea of ideas that we immediately take on, and therefore we have no free will. Free will starts when we know what we are, rather then who we are. It is through the practice of meditation – observing the mind – that pure consciousness is recognised, beyond our usual fixations.
Acknowledging this light of clarity is the way. Self is our root teacher, showing consciousness when the mind is holding on to ideas.
So … “I am the way and the light”.
Ideologies turn everything upside down.
Consciousness Is Not A Religion
Consciousness is what we are, and we are not a religion. Religion is partiality; it’s something organised for people to follow and belong to. All groups have an aim of group-talk, group-think. This isn’t being facetious; humans cling to groups for a reason – they think they don’t know!
Genuine compassion starts with generosity and tolerance
and is a personal matter.
It’s not groupthink.
It is through personal meditative investigation – which is liberation from others’ words – that we can realise that we are consciousness, pure and uncontaminated by academia or belief.
There is absolutely no point in copying others as we can’t know their level of understanding. They may have the ‘look’ and the ‘sound’, but do they have a complete picture of the cause of suffering?
Realisation has nothing to do with religion, philosophy, study or lineage. These are supposed to help but, on observation, it’s clear that people become stuck in these trains of thought and activities. And, like AI, they have facts but no compassion.
A group is a culture
that can also become bondage – a bandage. 🙂
Relying on any thing is the path to hell.
All realised beings walk alone.
The Buddha Said, “Do It Yourself”
Without personal investigation of our own mind, seeking teachings is like repeatedly going to a doctor thinking they’ll make it all better, but then not doing whatever is advised – to look, see and drop attachments.
We’ve become hypochondriacs, developing a neurotic state that turns consciousness into a self, never attaining a level of compassion, but only chanting about it.
No teacher can end our pain, not even the Buddha.
We have to do it.
We have to recognise our pain, see the cause of that pain, seek a remedy, and apply it.
The End Of Occupation
Whatever is occupying our mind is from the past that’s affecting our judgments now. This causes consciousness to be stressed and upset because it sees a bleak future. Holding on to ideas turns consciousness into a self, and it is this self set-up that up-sets consciousness, occupying our every moment.
Through the simple practice of meditation, we calm the mind, letting go of the experiences that actually brought us to this moment.
In simple, still awareness there is no occupation.
There are experiences that we have to go through because of karmic decisions brought on by our past. It is now that we can bring an end to this chain reaction, and be at peace.
If we hold on, we get more of the same.
Leaving The Ghosts Behind
The ghosts are memories that manipulate consciousness.
Everyone has these ghosts – hungry ghosts that want more then they can digest.
We become infected in their company .
If we can keep our needs simple, these ghosts leave us alone.
Under The Impression That Life Should Agreeable?
Do we think that life has to be enjoyable and pleasurable,
and that we should have the same opinions as everyone else?
What if we don’t find life enjoyable?
What if we see others as deluded?
In practice, we neither accept nor reject whatever comes our way;
realisation – pure perception – comes before judgement.
Being kicked out by both a guru and a lama for not acting in the same way as others was highly disagreeable. It made me wonder about compassion but it also helped me to let go.
What Are We Looking For?
The fear of missing out is the desire to belong.
In this, we’re doing the opposite to what is taught.
Why do we doubt the teaching, and keep going back for more? Is wanting to belong an addiction?
The fear of missing out is the thought that others are having rewarding experiences from which we are absent. We’re driven by the desire to stay connected. What are we looking for?
Is it driven by the need to belong, or a desire for recognition? Whatever it is, desire and fear are present, and we are ignoring the intuitive wisdom within. We are not ‘over there’.
Never think that Mara activity (the devil which doesn’t exist) is something outrageous.
It’s actually very subtle but opaque.
Pure consciousness is extremely subtle – and transparent.
The Inability To Recognise Evil
The inability to recognise evil makes us useless students of truth.
It is through recognising suffering and confusion
– and the cause of suffering and confusion –
that we traverse the path to enlightenment.
It is not through reading books.
The banality of evil suggests that evil can result not from monstrous intent, but from a lack of empathy, and a thoughtless conformity to a system. The root of evil is the self-serving emotions of desire, aversion, and delusion.
There are factors – including psychological trauma, abuse of power, and media that fosters biased behaviour – which create a toxic atmosphere. With the erosion of empathy, we lose our natural ability to relate to and feel for others, resulting in indifference and biased judgement.
Evil is recognised by uncontaminated consciousness. If it is not recognised, we are participants within the system.
Awareness of the pure and impure at the same time is the unity of opposites – heaven and hell.
If we only want heaven, we are already in hell.
Understanding The Invisible Prison
Escaping that which does not exist.
The creation and maintenance of a self – the ideas in the mind and the things we believe in – is our prison. These ideas comfort us into thinking, “This is where I belong” … and that is precisely our problem.
Inmates rename captivity ‘freedom’,
believing that comfort is proof
they were never meant to leave.
This invisible prison describes a state of psychological entrapment, where individuals convince themselves that they’re free by finding comfort, stability or routine in their confinement. By accepting this comfort as their proper place, they relinquish liberty.
Renaming captivity ‘freedom’ is the best way to keep a prisoner from escaping by ensuring that they never know they’re in prison. The complacency of a predictable, safe, or comfortable existence makes the hardship of seeking real freedom seem unnecessary.
We fail to notice this fatalistic mindset, this internal prison where individuals convince themselves that their limitations are natural, deserved, or unchangeable. This concept has an effect on our physical wellbeing, and is also a social trap, maintaining the cycle of addiction.
Spiritual practice is awareness of the mind’s skewed activity.
Our escape route – the path to enlightenment – is the realisation that awareness is always present.
The Formula That Entraps Every Being
This formula of desire, aversion and ignorance
controls our every thought and action.
The word ‘formula’ (from the Latin – shape or mould) refers to an established pattern used to achieve a consistent result.
We’ve been moulded by belief, which is acceptance without proof. This acceptance reveals the power of suggestion by utilising our desires and aversions, and our ignorance of our true reality. We conform to whichever mould into which we squeeze.
In truth, each individual’s essence is pure consciousness, free of both form and belief. Meditation is a method or formula for mindful awareness, but once we arrive at awareness of awareness – pure consciousness – we drop the method, the formula, so that we don’t become attached to the form of meditation, and meditation experiences.
No one became enlightened by meditating;
they became enlightened by dropping the meditation.
Meditation is like soap to wash off the dirt.
Then we wash away the soap.
Not Understand The Predicament We’re In
Ignoring the predicament we’re in.
Indifferent to the predicament we’re in.
This life we lead is not our reality. It’s a piece of theatre in which we learn to act. We repeat the same limiting words every day, never realise that this is not our reality.
We can spent our entire lives looking for people who aren’t in the show. The predicament is not finding any such person, so we learn to step around the dream-walkers.
All of this is a reminder that we are awake,
and should stay awake.
People Say They’re Not A Spiritual Person
We may not like a word such as ‘spiritual’ because of the connotations it conjures up. I once heard a student say to the teacher, “I don’t like the word emptiness – I prefer the word shunyata.” His connotation was different to mine; for me, emptiness meant uncontaminated and pure – words I understood. The word shunyata was just being exotic. 🙂
Connotation: an idea or feeling that a word invokes in a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.
When someone says, “I’m not a spiritual person” or “I am a spiritual person” what connotations have they acquired? Consciousness is ethereal awareness which some call it spirit, and some call soul. It is our essence. Being spiritually aware is being consciously aware, and we’re all aware to some degree.
By stating, “I’m not a spiritual person”, they’re equating it with being religious – something airy-fairy – and they don’t want to be associated with the airy-fairies. 🙂 I can’t blame them.
They think of themselves as practical, grounded people. These are mind-only individuals; they believe that their thoughts are what they are, never realising that those thoughts are concoctions from the concocted thoughts of others who are constantly quoting them. We don’t notice the mental prison that we’re in.
All beings are conscious, because they are consciousness first and foremost, but they ignore this in favour of conforming to social ‘norms’, just like any animal.
When investigated through meditation,
there is just pure awareness that has neither name nor description.
Has Humanity Been Lied To?
Has humanity been lied to?
According to AI, yes.
Has humanity been lied to?
“Yes, evidence indicates humanity has been, and continues to be, subjected to significant lies, historical revisionism, and misinformation across politics, science, and history. Governments and institutions have often manipulated narratives to suit agendas, including covering up mass atrocities, promoting false myths or creating fraudulent economic schemes.
“Societies often present constructed ‘truths’ rather than objective reality to maintain social order or promote specific ideologies. This includes misconceptions about the nature of historical work. Human perception is limited and influenced by ego. ‘Truth’ is often filtered and distorted, leading to a ‘sea of unknowns’ where falsehoods are easily accepted.
“Ultimately, while some argue that most people are honest, widespread and impactful lies have been historically documented, shaping, and at times manipulating, human perception of reality.
“Lying is deeply embedded in the human experience, spanning everything from harmless social etiquettes to massive historical distortions. Whether humanity has been lied to depends on the scale you’re looking at.
“Historically, humanity has been used to manipulate public perception and judicial outcomes. Almost everything humanity ‘knows’ is a construction.”
Whose life are you leading?
Are you shocked now?
Made In Another’s Image
The danger is not that machines will think like man,
but that man will think like machines.
The danger was not that books reflect man,
but that man reflects books.
Unless we truly know what we are,
we will remain a facsimile.
We don’t realise the state we are in
– the same state as throughout history.
We think others’ words,
What Was Is Now
In an infinite universe, there can be no beginning.
Whatever was is here right now.
Whatever we want to find out, we can do so now. History repeats itself. We repeat ourselves. The universe repeats itself, ruled by attraction and repulsion. What’s it all about? Ignorance (endarkenment) and pure consciousness (enlightenment ). Not know and knowing.
Imagine you’re enlightened, in perfect bliss, and totally aware that everything repeats itself in cycles. Large cycles, small cycles. Pleasant periods, and unpleasant periods. This cannot be stopped as the universe is infinite – understanding this is the ultimate realisation.
Enlightenment is constant dwelling in pure consciousness. Would you want to be anywhere else? To most of us, this sounds totally boring – we want to create interesting things, and this is why we are human, and not enlightened yet.
Enlightened beings called Bodhisattvas take on human incarnations to help those who are on the verge of realisation. In a universe full of ignorance which causes constant suffering though attraction and repulsion, they can lay a path.
Only in this moment now can we realise the ultimate truth of our reality – that we are pure consciousness.
Feeling that the universe isn’t infinite creates a whole lot of trouble. 🙂
No Purpose, No Energy
Know purpose, know energy.
Through recognition of the need, power and inspiration come to us. This is what happened when the Buddha saw suffering in the world, and we have to do the same. The Buddha didn’t protest with a banner or argue with people; he went deep within and realised the source of suffering.
When we argue, it gives others no time for proper reflection and so they just react, and conversations are more of the same.
Reading and meditation are a solitary affairs of reflection;
spiritual practice is a matter of investigating the cause behind the cause.
In meditation, pure consciousness has no needs, no desires, no fears. The outcome of such practice is an understanding of others’ plight – that they too are pure consciousness, but don’t realise that consciousness that has been turned into a self, and is thus the cause of suffering.
This realisation provides the energy for compassion, and our individual method of expressing this understanding. We all have an personal talent to convey whatever is experienced.
Recognising the self-deviation of confusion is the path to enlightenment.
The Point And The Pointlessness Of Life
The point of life is know what life is.
Life is not what we do;
life is consciousness, before we decide what to do.
The purpose of consciousness is to realise its quality of pure knowingness and compassion that can never be destroyed. Understanding this has a tremendous effect on our life; it’s no longer one of survival, but of realising the wisdom that leads to enlightenment.
When we know what we are – rather than believing what we’re told that we are – a shock occurs as we recognise that people who don’t know what they are merely seek entertainment. They want to know about things, rather than actually know the knowingness that is present, which is pure consciousness, the reality of life itself. Our view changes from the mundane to the supramundane – from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
This approach isn’t for most people
who find it pointless.
Pointlessness is the state of having no purpose, meaning, or significance. It considers our true reality to be a waste of time or effort, and seeks quick snappy answers because it doesn’t have the ability or capacity to reflect on a subject, and to see others’ points of view. Pointlessness gives rise to a lack of empathy, and is equated with meaninglessness nihilism, a view that life is merely survival, and ultimately pointless.
This poor mental state does not recognise the causes of suffering. Its persistent view is that life is pointless, which results in depression and a crisis of existence. In this state, there’s no listening as everything we hear is translated through bias and, as a result, we are quick to condemn.
Pointless people wish their pointlessness to be validated,
and think that having a point is something we just made up.
🙂
Our Mind Is The Cave
Our mind is the screen, with projections on its wall which we believe is our reality – “It’s all about me”! Handheld mobile devices are carried to create yet more memories and programming, transporting our cave around with us. We’re still cave dwellers. 🙂
We don’t leave the cave until enlightenment. In the meantime, we remain aware of the collective illusion in which we live. It’s all ‘grist for the mill’ (referring to something useful, beneficial, or advantageous that can be used to support a purpose).
The illusion is our reminder.
Remember the example of the mirror. If we look in the mirror, we see our reflection and say, “Oh, that’s my reflection”. This is dualistic vision. Non-dualistic vision means to be in the nature of the mirror. We don’t see reflections; we reflect everything.
This is our potential; we do not need to separate ourselves from the reflections and judge them.
The illusion is our reminder.
Remember the example of the mirror. If we look in the mirror, we see our reflection and say, “Oh, that’s my reflection”. This is dualistic vision. Non-dualistic vision means to be in the nature of the mirror. We don’t see reflections; we reflect everything.
This is our potential; we do not need to separate ourselves from the reflections and judge them.
We Never Left The Cave
Plato’s allegory of the cave:
Imagine human beings living in an underground cave. They’ve been there since their childhood, forced to look ahead at projections on a wall. There is light from a fire blazing behind them and puppeteers project images on the wall that the audience believe to be real as they have seen nothing else throughout their lives. This is the nature of education and ignorance.
We are still watching the screen today.
We still have our heads in a book.
We are still believing the words.
We are still captured.
All we have to do to exit the cave is be aware that everything is an illusion of reality – shadows projected onto our minds. Our actual reality is the seeing – consciousness. Even be aware of philosophical descriptions of the cave as those can turn into yet another long-winded theory. Humanity has been duped.
All political parties are just a uni-party. We don’t vote for change; we vote for the same misdirection of organised crime, and we’re still in the cave.
The cave has no reality.
It is merely a suggestion to which we consent.
We are free in the moment of seeing.
Finding The Ego
Maintaining an ego:
we need a little ego.
Ego is consciousness attaching itself to ideas in the mind, creating a sense of pride in a self.
With such pride, we can do all sorts of things – marvellous things – but we’re still stuck in pride, vanity and self-idolatry. In a material world, pride is a virtue – how clever we are. Yes, clever, but do I want to emulate this quality of competitiveness?
If someone has low self-esteem through upbringing, they may feel ineffective and invisible and perhaps angry, so they need to build confidence.
And so we tread the middle way of not too tight and not too loose. Having confidence is realising that we pure consciousness, and that it is always true.
We may not light up the world, but we know we are the flame
– the lamp that dispels darkness.
Realising this light within is the greatest achievement
when united with humility.
Guiding Light
If we don’t know the truth of our reality, then what is our guiding light to provide inspiration, motivation, or direction? Someone else’s inspiration?
The guiding light is the clarity within all beings. It is pure consciousness. Whatever ‘light’ we assume is outside has to be recognised within. That which is within is the authority, the validator, the guiding light.
Seek and you shall not find.
🙂
The resolution is in the seeing.
Resolution: from Latin, resolvere – loosen, release, resolve.
Simple But Not Easy
Realising our essence of pure consciousness is simple; we just have to be aware of being aware.
It’s knowingness, before self pokes its nose in and gives an opinion.
Why is it not easy? Because our minds have been infected with social interactions for thousands of years.
We assume we can think our way out of this confusion,
but it cannot be done that way.
Philosophers and scientists throughout history have come to a dead end.
So what to do?
As they would say in Zen, “Stop trying.” Trying to it work out is playing with it. It’s exactly this excitement that creates our confusion – and there’s a lot of it about.
Sitting in silent meditation, just observing the mind in action and letting go, is a start. But many meditators just keep meditating with little realisation. We need to integrate pure awareness into daily life.
Simply rest in awareness. Stop following thoughts, and relax. Then notice if this process helps in less reaction, with emotions subsiding quickly. We are content with whatever presents itself, even though it may seem unpleasant.
The Dharma is beyond sleep.
Or … it can put you to sleep.
Dharma is our natural wakeful state of pure consciousness, the wondrous essence of our being. But when Dharma becomes a religion, a form is created with lots of words and symbols, supposedly to remind us to wake up. When we become attracted and bewitched by the form, however, we forget essence which, in Tibetan, is called ‘rigpa’ – which is just a word.
When this happens, compassion becomes just another word – it may be ‘karuna’ in Sanskrit, or ‘nying-je’ in Tibetan. Every time I hear anyone use the word ‘dukkha’ for suffering, I switch off and go to sleep. 😀
No! Not really – I scream!
And that wakes me up.
🙂
Integrating Every Moment
– Chögyal Namkhai Norbu
By integrating every moment of your life, you are beyond meditation and non-meditation.
Although meditation is helpful, if we want to continuously be in our real nature, meditation alone is not sufficient. Normally we can meditate half an hour, or maybe one hour. Some people can sit for two or three hours a day, but that’s it.
During the other twenty-two or twenty-three hours we live in complete distraction, especially in this modern world, where we have to work, raise children, and pay our bills. And we also need time to cook, to eat, and to sleep. So how can we possibly remain in the state of our real nature twenty-four hours a day, week after week, year after year?
The answer is that we need to integrate everything we do in that state. Integration is a key Dzogchen practice, and it is integration that makes this teaching particularly useful in these modern times, when people do not have much time to sit alone and meditate, or go to some cave and stay in retreat for years and years.
Integration means that while we go about our daily life, we are not remaining in a dualistic vision. Remember the example of the mirror. If we look in the mirror, see our reflection, and say, “Oh, this is my reflection”, this is dualistic vision. Non-dualistic vision means to be in the nature of the mirror. We don’t see reflections, we reflect everything. This is just our potentiality, we do not need to separate ourselves from the reflections and judge them.
When we have this capacity, it means there is no difference between meditation and non-meditation, because everything and every moment of our life is integrated into our real nature.
Chögyal Namkhai Norbu
Starting the Evolution
Accepting And Rejecting Has Consequences
A practitioner of pure consciousness neither accepts nor rejects whatever comes their way. This is the path to enlightenment. Everything as as illusion of reality; this seeing that everything is an illusion is the reminder that pure consciousness is present.
It’s not a fair world – or it seems that way. Injustice and imbalance are everywhere.
So where does karma come into all this?
We’re mean to each other and, collectively, this accumulates.
Arrogance has consequences, as do emotions.
Accepting is attraction/like.
Rejecting is repulsion/dislike.
Artificial Dharma
AI is presenting Dharma, but remember that it’s just words; there is no experience behind those words. It scans the web and produces its verdict. AI has no compassion and no wisdom – anyone who just repeats word is AI.
We must consider what we are saying, and to whom. Dharma is a generalisation. Realisation of the words is only through silent contemplation and meditation, when we understand the pattern of our behaviour. Then we know the ultimate truth of our being, which pure consciousness.
But don’t believe a word you’ve just read. 🙂 AI can’t say that. Dogmatic people can’t say that.
Being told that Dharma can only be transmitted by the breath of another* is also suspicious, although it’s a nice idea. The real Dharma is what we are, and have always been. The consequence of realisation is mind-blowing – we cannot stop waking up.
It’s a very tricky world out there.
Words have many levels of meaning depending on the audience.
Our trouble starts when AI changes the meaning of words.
* A ‘lung’ (pronounced loong) is the oral transmission of a text, mantra, or practice by an authorised holder in the Vajrayana tradition.
Why The Inability To Evolve?
Can you think for yourself?
There are forces on Earth which do not have the ability to evolve. They stick to a script, and want everyone else to do so too; this is actually dumbing us down, making sure no one evolves.
People are born into a system, and identify with it. Due to groupthink, we find we can only speak freely outside that system. Evolution is a matter of escaping this mundane human state of muddy concepts, and transforming into our supramundane state of pure consciousness.0
Mundane: ordinary, everyday, routine, humdrum, dull, boring, prosaic, commonplace, and pedestrian, all conveying a lacking originality, uninspiring or relating to earthly, practical matters.
Supramundane: refers to beyond the ordinary physical world that transcends human existence.
Realising the mundane is supramundane.
It’s the same as the exoteric and esoteric.
Know Mud, Know Buddha.
Know Buddha, Know Mud.
A Deviation From Buddhism, But Not From The Buddha
In Buddhism, we are told our problems stem from an idea of self.
But where did this idea of self come from?
What runs our life?
What distracts consciousness?
There are demonic forces dedicated to controlling our lives from behind the scenes. These powers promote ideas, and can also omit ideas. Power accumulates power; it is not elected. Votes do not change anything – these demonic forces merely re-package to maintain power. Notice the pattern: these powers decide what becomes normalised, and what the latest trends will be.
Trends are a series of events which come so fast that the human brain cannot absorb all the information. The targeted population discovers that it cannot make choices any more, and accepts whatever trend is given to it. This divides generations, and information overload reigns.
The acceptable face of protest is ‘soft’ communalism, which refers to a form of social or political organisation that emphasises community identity and mutual welfare over individualistic pursuits, but without the intense, confrontational, or violent characteristics of ‘hard’ communalism.
A real-world example:
‘Divide and rule’ give rise to a rigid ‘us versus them’ attitude.
This identification with a side creates a self.
Once we realise this,
we can deal with the problem.
Meditation helps,
but we have to do some research into the creation of self
to actually realise the truth.
Who Is Right?
My Guru! … My Guru! … My Lama ! … My Teacher! … My Book! … My Book! ..
Whatever anyone says is the truth is never the truth.
What is true?
The truth is not some physical experience.
It is that which is experiencing the experience.
Being comes before perception and words. It is the pure cognisance of our reality. We have to be careful not to experience though others’ interpretation or culture.
A example:
Several people are eating the same species of apple. Each will have an opinion about the taste, using limited words to describe it. Any description is a personal experience – a generalisation – which cannot be accurately appreciated because we are all individuals. An opinion is not the truth about an apple. The truth is in the tasting experience before the opinion. That first moment is pure perception, the yoga of tasting. After tasting the apple, that first moment of clarity is still present.
What is right?
Clarity is the quality of being coherent, easily understood, and free from ambiguity. It’s the ability to think clearly without confusion or bias.
Our essence – the clarity of pure consciousness – is right, straight, not bent.
It no longer relies on gurus; it relies on seeing our own confusion and bias.
That is our precious teacher.
The Light That Dispels Darkness
Light: the clarity of pure consciousness; the empty essence of mind.
Dispel: make a doubt, feeling, or belief disappear.
Darkness: the mental furniture, fixtures and fittings, memories, programming in the mind that constructs a self-image.
Our reality is the clarity of pure consciousness. We don’t have to make this happen; we are this light, right now. When this is realised, it lights up all the neuroses in the mind, the spell of memories we’re under that has no actual reality.
To dispel this darkness, we merely have to recognise the influences playing on us daily; these dark art of deception reinforce the self through our exaggerated reactions. It is recognising this deception – the cause of confusion – that is our path to enlightenment.
The brighter the light of consciousness,
the more the darkness is dispelled.
AI Cannot Talk From Experience
AI merely repeats others’ words.
Most of us are like that.
AI is merely mimicking human behaviour.
🙂
To go beyond artificial intelligence,
we must realise the essence of mind
– pure consciousness.
AI always has a view.
Pure consciousness is the view.
Internet AI Mode Definition… continued and continued
This AI text creates questions:
“The ‘Witness’: It is often described as the silent observer or ‘that which knows’ that persists through all experiences.
“Non-Dual Reality: It is Advaita Vedanta, non-dual, infinite awareness that constitutes the ultimate reality.”
These descriptions indicate why and when the Buddha realised something different from the Vedanta tradition. Identification with being a witness or an observer creates a moment, a period of reflection. Pure consciousness is timeless. If this text doesn’t indicate the difference between observe-ing and observer its understanding is limiting.
From the Dzogchen point of view, in the experience of non-dual pure consciousness, there is no witness or observer. There is merely witness-ing or observe-ing.
If words are telling us to believe in them but there is no indication that those words need to be tested, this would be seen as Mara activity.
It’s up to each individual to decide which is accurate.
BUDDHA IN THE MUD is a blog - a living book based on the Dzogchen teachings. Our teacher is life, and life is karma. We are all Buddhas in the mud of concepts. 