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.

Led To Believe We’re Not Enlightened

Enlightenment is realising our true reality.
How sustained that is is up to each individual.

We are enlightened, but believe that we aren’t.
Through distraction, we fall into the illusion of not knowing.

The who believes it is trapped, but the what simply observes the belief.
By realising that our un-enlightenment is just a belief, we’re actually back in original clarity.

Mara takes the truth of what we are, and turns it into a who we are,
giving us a special title, a spiritual ego, or a philosophy of superiority.

Perfect awareness is already present.
It isn’t a future goal that we must work to achieve.

Thinking that enlightenment is for special people,
we will never understand that it is every sentient being’s birthright.

Our Confusion Is Based On Labels

When consciousness identifies with something, it gives it a label, and forms an attachment. We are claiming a specific understanding, meaning, or ownership of the way that thing is perceived.

This collection of ideas becomes a self = myself, my library.

When we stop identifying with the stories, roles, and labels, this mental chaos dissolves, leaving only uncontaminated witnessing.

Valuing Emptiness – Pure Knowingness

Emptiness means uncontaminated mind, pure awareness, pure consciousness, pure knowingness. It is the clarity of silent witnessing that perceives through this body and mind; pure perception from behind the scenes.

This empty cognisance is ever-present, but goes unnoticed. It’s ignored because we are otherwise engaged. Emptiness doesn’t create anything, but can manifest compassionate energy in many forms.

All phenomena is created by causes and conditions, and is thus empty of any true reality. It then dissolves, reforming new phenomena. Neither phenomena nor thoughts have any permanent reality.

This is why everything is an illusion. The body and mind are just conduits – channels for consciousness. This invisible awareness behind the scenes is what we truly are.

We meditate to realise that which is beyond words.

Nothing Is New

Humanity has fallen for trickery for generations; it’s not something new. History proves that media manipulation is as old as print itself.

While the technology changes, the psychological traps used to exploit human curiosity and outrage have remained exactly the same for centuries.

Our brains still operate on prehistoric survival instincts, meaning that we automatically pay attention to sudden shocks, threats, and bizarre anomalies before logic kicks in.

The illusion of truth is that humans are naturally inclined to believe a false claim simply because they have heard it repeated multiple times.

So we stop asking question.

Our Thoughts Are Not Our Own

Thoughts are words, and words are inherited, therefore thoughts are inherited and that limits our experience. We talk about things we are programmed to talk about, so nothing changes. We actually boast trivia. Have you ever wonder why we talk the way we do?

Reality is beyond the conventional spectrum of memories and stories of the past. We never notice that we are a contrivance that has been captivated, deceived and manipulated.

When we experience and realise this,
our thinking becomes transparent.
We see with clarity
– and it’s a wondrous shock.

Finding The Right Words

It’s difficult to find the right words in the right order to convey experience. One could say to be aware of awareness, but it’s subtler than that; being aware of awareness still sounds like doing something.

There is a presence behind the scenes of body and mind;
meditation ‘sets the scene’ for the curtains to draw back.

Observer And Observation

Pure observation is objective.
An observer is subjective as it can be perceived.

The moment an observation passes through our mind, it’s filtered through our personal history and cognitive biases.

Pure observation is the what, without judgement, narrative, or emotional colouring.
The observer is the who, interpreting and speculating, giving rise to judgements, narratives and emotions.

Pure observation is timeless.
The observer creates time in order to judge.

When the observer dissolves, only pure observation remains, ending confusion.
This is the beginning of absolute truth.

Not Coping, While Pretending To Cope

The problem with relying on AI and ‘spiritual teachings’ is that we live a cut-and-paste life, and stop feeling our way directly in a situation. AI and texts become our go-to place, instead of working through a problem ourselves.

Trying to be the best isn’t good enough. 🙂

We work with our own karmic mind, however poorly we think it functions. It’s right intention that shines through – using others’ echo chambers confuses empathic communication.

Pure consciousness isn’t something to adopt. It’s what we naturally are, before any cleverness and projections.

Being actively kind is simply the ability to just listen, and wish wellbeing for others. Life isn’t a competition, and it’s not about projecting an image. The purpose of life is to know what we are; only then can we know what others are.

Right intention is knowing the psychology of our mind.
It’s not philosophy, which is the speculations of someone else’s mind.

We Are Inherently Divine

We are inherently divine – we just need a nudge in the right direction.

The ‘just a nudge’ part is important, to understand the nub, the central point that holds everything together. Instead, we seek full-blown explanations that only satisfy our intellectual curiosity as we say, “Done that!” and move onto the next teaching, when all we actually needed was a nudge in the right direction to give us confidence.

This is how we feel our way.
Those who acquire all the explanations
are practically useless.
🙂

The Buddha’s truth was to acknowledge suffering, not merely to know about it in a theoretical sense but to experience it. Only then can empathetic compassion be known. Likewise, we have to experience annoyance to seek its cause, rather than just being told, “Don’t get annoyed.”

Why do we engage on this journey? It is the inherent divinity within us all which seeks to remember what we are. For some it’s buried deep, while for others, it cannot help but surface.

Clarity means divine splendour; the realisation that we all have an enlightened nature.

Nothing Can Be Resolved With Others

It feels frustrating, but we recognise others’ boundaries.

Keeping our door open represents a mature balance between boundaries and constant availability. We recognise a person’s current inability to open up, but we don’t let this closed-ness cause us to shut down. Even a Buddha can’t open people’s minds unless they are ready to connect; they will open in their own good time, as we did.

We don’t hold any active rejection towards others, leaving room for future possibilities. By having infinite patience and low expectations, we accept the reality that some people may choose to stay closed off. The invitation to communicate remains genuine and unaltered by past frustrations.

Integrity is maintained, regret is eliminated and warmth is consistently cultivated.

What Is Devotion?

Devotion is certainly not worshipping a person or a deity. This is where we become confused about deity practice, Vajrayana, Guru yoga. There are no mysterious transmissions. Such claims are unsound logic that seem convincing, but are misleading.

Devotion is appreciation. It’s a reminder. Anything that helps us to remember mindful conscious awareness is appreciated = a blessing. It could be in the form of a person, a stone, the space we’re in, consumerism, Mara … when anyone speaks … 🙂

Everything is a teacher, a transmission, a blessing.
Humility is without exaggeration,
and with gratitude for any interaction.

Reverse Engineering Our Self

That which we think of as ‘our self ‘ is an over-excited mind which excites consciousness. We think we are this mind, but that is actually the reverse of our reality. This is all observed by consciousness.

When, through meditation, this conscious awareness is realised, there is nothing else is present. That is pure consciousness. Any feeling of “I am” obscures pure perception. There is no observer as that would imply a self again.

The habitual mistake we make – which is, in fact, our programming – is that we learn to conform from birth. Had any original thoughts lately? 🙂

This doesn’t mean we’re nothing. There is just empty cognisance, fully alive but not identifying as anything. When we identify, we are holding on to an idea, and this is ego clinging, which is the cause of confusion, pride and suffering.

This pure, uncontaminated view is a totally different way of being
and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
-)

Suddenly, It Hits You

There is no tomorrow.
When we’re in tomorrow, it’s today.
Life is only now.

Of course, it’s been said before,
but suddenly we realise it.

Enlightened awareness is like that. If we think enlightenment is in the future, then it will always be in the future. But what is in the future is here now. It’s like saying, “I’ll wake up sometime in the future”, when you’re already awake now.

We don’t have to do anything special, just drop whatever we’re holding onto – like the belief that we’re not enlightened.

Awake means pure, uncontaminated consciousness, not driven by concepts of time and space.

The Antidote For A Poisoned Mind

A poisoned mind is one fed information, suggestion, belief, hearsay, which creates emotions and reactions, turning a natural, open mind into an infected state.

The antidote for a poisoned mind is taking everything that others say with a pinch of salt* – this is mind training. As long as we believe, we will remain victims, which is expressed in our speech and behaviour, spreading yet more poison.

Hearsay should be taken with scepticism, because the source might be exaggerating or the information unverified.

Training the mind not to grasp at everything is the antidote.
Never take literally anything that’s said, even if they are good words.

* The ancient Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, wrote down a recipe for an antidote to poison that required a grain of salt to work.

Imprisoned By Language

The paradox of lectures on pure perception
is that pure perception is without words.

Enlightenment Is Not Up There

Compliance doesn’t come from a lack of access to information, but rather from information overload designed to capture our attention and influence behaviour.

Unless we train our mind to clear the clutter, we will be subject to merely repeating others’ stories.
Once we can clear our mind, we’ll be able to see what obscures our pure view.

The practice isn’t about great learning;
it’s noticing our habitual reactions now.
This shows consciousness the way beyond the mind to enlightenment.

If we think enlightenment is high ‘up there’ somewhere, that belief in an ‘up there’ is our junk. This how we’ve been deceived.

Enlightenment is right here, right now.

Living In Complete Understanding

Living in complete understanding
is opposed to living in incomplete understanding.

We are non-material consciousness embodied in a human form, and driven by our karmically created conceptual mind. If we ignore this truth and think we’re only body and mind, our understanding is incomplete. In this way, we merely function as humans, identifying with our environment – and that’s our lot.

We could be very good at functioning,
but we only build and maintain illusions.

If we are unconscious of consciousness, we live in ignorance, relying on memories placed there by our environment, our dream state of being occupied.

It is because we are consciousness that we know.
We wake up when we’ve had enough of sleeping.

The Choice To Opt Out

We’re all part of the foolish game of following followers.

Using huge surveillance systems to monitor our foolishness is even more foolish than the foolishness they’re tracking 🙂 as all we hear people talking about follows the one rule: only speak about the past. This is our dream state.

Most of human chatter relies on memory, narratives, and social performance. When we strip away the past – recounting things that happened, digging up old grievances, repeating identity stories – this eliminates future plans, anxieties and projections, and the present moment becomes remarkably quiet.

Why does the present feel silent? There’s no script, and therefore no ego, and the ego needs the past to define who it is, and the future to state what it wants.

Pure presence is without these two illusory tenses. When the illusion is dropped, all that is left is just spontaneous silent perception. This is why retreats are held in silence. When the silence is broken, all hell is unleashed. 🙂

Opting out means choosing presence over performance. Few people are ready to meet us there, but the connections made in that space are entirely real.

Opting out is the release from suffering.

We Become Labelling Machines

Our modern environment traps us in artificial loops of language and concepts rather than direct, lived experience. We become stuck in word play rather than resting in pure observation, as our brain instantly attaches labels to things, and we stop seeing or communicating.

We live in our heads, reacting to definitions and social narratives rather than experiencing the reality which is observing this too-ing and fro-ing.

Our linguistic environment forces us into ideological circles as we argue over definitions, buzzwords and abstract concepts, completely disconnected from tangible observation.

Before words, there is a moment of pure observation.

Beyond Meditation

Meditation is the method to still the mind from circling thoughts, distractions and reactions. As we can’t be aware of two things at the same time, we focus on the breath. This simplifies attention. Meditation calms the mind down so that we (consciousness) are free, detached from thoughts and reactions.

Once silent stillness arrives, we drop the method and rest in what we are – pure consciousness.

When distraction returns, we apply the method again, and then drop it again. There is no rush, as everything is perfect: the meditation, the distraction, the awareness, the forgetting, the remembering … it is all emptiness within pure consciousness.

No thing, no thought has any ultimate reality – they just seem real because everyone else thinks they’re real. Then we the wash the dishes and we sweep the floor … remembering that we are the gap between thoughts. Short moments, many times.

In this way, even prayer becomes a distraction as it’s a duality – me and whatever I am praying to.

Non-duality is pure awareness.
Like a mirror, whatever occurs just reflects, without attachment.

Humans, AI and Dzogchen

Humans and AI both undergo forms of conditioning. AI learns from a vast database of human activity, while society conditions humans through a database of culture, habit, and language. We have been living in a world of titbits of information that fill our mind, maintaining this communal database.

However, a crucial difference exists: we have the ability to doubt or be confused, and that is the magic available to all humans – mental suffering and dissatisfaction, which is the switch.

We realise that we’re merely functioning in a construct created by others, limiting our full potential.

The realisation of this shock opens up a gap in the mind for a moment. That gap is awareness without identity. This is Dzogchen – or whatever you want to call it: the state of potential before possibilities.

Realisation requires awareness of the need to transform the boundary of our thoughts and emotions.

Humans can choose to do the opposite of conditioning and realise that they are, first and foremost, consciousness which is able to function without repetitive direction or conditioning.

The Buddha Went Off Script

The Buddha is the example of someone who went off script to break out of the hive mentality. Siddhartha Gautama was handed the ultimate social script: a life of absolute luxury, political power as a prince, and the expectation to maintain a system (all of which people today admire).

By rejecting all of it, he didn’t just rewrite his own life, he dismantled the spiritual and collective thinking of that time.

Awakening depends entirely on our own actions, and not our birth, wealth or rituals.

People shouldn’t believe something just because it’s a tradition, or because it was spoken by a religious leader, written in a holy book, or believed by the majority. He instructs individuals to test ideas against their own direct experience and reasoning.

The Buddha recognised that the human mind is a collection of deeply ingrained cultural, emotional, and biological scripts – and there are confusing scripts and confused directors. Meditation is the tool to look directly at the mind in order to see this automated programming, and thus dismantle the illusion.

By going off-script, we can prove that the only way to escape collective delusion is through individual raw experience beyond any reified statements that turn information into a concrete form so that we treat it like any other entity.

We can be in the world, but not a product of it.

The Prison Of Enlightenment

Seeing this planet as a prison changes our perspective of earthly existence.

Rather than a trap, however, life now provides an intense learning environment where the resistance offered by physical limitations and the suffering of mental confusion gives a unique opportunity to strip away the ego and achieve enlightenment by providing the precise friction needed to ignite the profound realisation of pure consciousness.

Viewing the material world as confinement transforms our earthly suffering into the ultimate catalyst for spiritual awakening.

The first step is,
“I’ve had enough of this silliness; what caused it?”
🙂

A Fool To Oneself

Being a “fool to oneself” means that consciousness is making judgements to our disadvantage by listening to the foolish self-identity in our mind. Common sense is ignored, sabotaging our own chance of success out of stubbornness, pride, or a failure to think things through.

Our worst enemy is our own judgment that distorts perception to protect our personal beliefs (and all ideas are beliefs).

We ignore inconvenient facts, such as we are pure consciousness, because admitting we are mistaken makes us feel weak. This inner dictator is a mental defence mechanism which filters out threatening truths and repeats convenient falsehoods to keep us feeling secure.

We ignore the silent awareness that warns us of danger,
just to maintain a comfortable illusion.

If We Don’t Realise The Truth

Realisation is experiencing both what we are, and what we have become. We are the essence of consciousness – enlightenment itself – which is addicted to toys. Doesn’t that sound crazy?

Originally, the word ‘toy’ meant a foolish story, trifling speech, an amusement, or a clever trick before it evolved to mean a physical plaything.

We spend our entire lives with toys – “Manufactured for Your Enjoyment” – rather than realising what we are. In this way, humanity is constantly distracted, absent-minded, preoccupied, unable to concentrate… which creates anxiety and internal worries about whatever we’re attached to.

Realisation isn’t about beautiful words.
It’s experiencing the meaning.

Enlightenment isn’t lofty ideas.
It’s realising the simplicity of being.

Words are then just toys.

The trap of intellectualisation is that we mistake the menu for the meal. Words describe reality, but they’re not reality itself. This can’t be said enough times.

When we treat beautiful words or complex concepts as toys, spirituality becomes a playground for the mind rather than a transformation of the mind. The truth is incredibly close, so close that the mind overshoots it while looking for something grand – The Great Toy, The Maha Toy. 🙂

Even meditation is a toy.
When we drop the meditation,
we have arrived.

The Unity Of Emptiness And Illusions

As long as we’re aware, we can discern the nuances of perception. If we look quickly to the left or right – and before identifying with whatever is seen – there is just empty awareness for a split second. Nothing’s going on, and no judgements are being made.

In the next milli-moment, we notice that we’ve conjured up a story about everything the eyes have rested on, and then emptiness – pure consciousness – is forgotten. We’ve overlooked what we are.

The stories we tell about whatever is seen are the projected illusions we carry around with us. The more familiar we become with this process, the more the illusions remind us of our reality.

Empty cognisance is our reality of pure consciousness.
The universe is complete in opposites – everything is the teacher.

The Truth Will Hit Us Hard

One day, we’ll read some words, and the truth will hit us hard because the truth is uncomfortable. When the truth sets us free, it’s known in Latin as Magna Vacillatio, or in Sanskrit as Mahān Kampaḥ, or in Tibetan ’Khyom Chen-po. The great wobble. 🙂

From the moment we’re born, we inherit a language, a set of rules, and expectations that shape how we view the world and ourselves. The belief that words have a strange power builds our identity, and the prison we’re clinging to.

Reading words is easy.
Knowing what they mean is alarming.

The truth is not in the words;
the ultimate truth of the infinite universe
is reading those words.
🙂

Being hung up on words is the prison.