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.

“The Odds Are Stacked Against Us”

“The odds are stacked against us” is an idiom meaning that success is highly unlikely due to overwhelming obstacles and unfavourable circumstances, making the maintenance of sanity challenging.

It indicates that external factors are working against us. We can spend our entire life never realising our true reality in favour of playing a part to which we consent, and repeating the same unfavourable conditions. This can happen even in religion, when we just follow others, and achieve no direct experience.

Recognising this, the odds are now in our favour. This is why evil intent can never totally succeed, as its repercussions are echoed in ordinary conversations.

When we realise we are blessed with challenges, we know we’re on the right path. 🙂

Don’t Let Damage Control Your Life

We are all damaged in some way by desire, aversion and indifference but, unfortunately, most of us don’t realise how damaged we are. Supportive communication starts the healing. Unfortunately, the damage caused by fear has already taken effect, and stops us being at one with each other. This is where empathetic understanding – that we’re all damaged by desire, aversion and indifference – comes to the fore.

We can’t expect support from others as their understanding is just that – their understanding. Support involves active listening, empathy, and feedback, rather than evaluation or judgment. Talking to people doesn’t seem to work. We’re forced to stand on our own two feet through direct experience and realisation.

Through earnest intention, blessings come our way which support our level of understanding. Sometimes we attract blessings in disguise; an apparent misfortune may eventually have fortunate results. Things, people, situations drop away, allowing us space and time to practise. We no longer panic.

Don’t let competitiveness spoil your inner peace.

Believing And Debunking*

Believing and debunking are both part of the vicious cycle of existence = Samsara. Creating beliefs will create the opposite of debunking. This is accepting and rejecting; I like and I dislike.

Humanity is kept in chaos and confusion due to this riddle which causes unhappiness. Whenever we read something, we don’t notice that we’re taking one side or another. Both sides may may claim to be true, but this all about conflict to keep humanity at each others’ throats.

Whenever you see conflict, step back and ask who benefits.

*to debunk: to expose the falseness or hollowness of an idea or belief.

The Most Important Words

The most important words ever spoken were by the Buddha:
“Do not take my words for the truth; test them.”

This simply means don’t trust anyone, especially your teacher. Until we utilise the teaching in daily interaction with others, we will never realise the power of those words. People talk from their experience and learning, but it may not be relevant to our situation and karma.

There are things every individual has to confront that we each hold dear – we hold on to.

Mara and the Buddha both know our weaknesses.
Our path is to know them too.

Groups Are Conformity

In a group, we lose individuality, and identify with belonging and groupthink. Groups only survive through everyone thinking the same way. To disagree is considered heresy.

All enlightened beings have stepped outside the group, and could therefore have been thought of as heretics.

Groups are easier to control than individuals. And this is where Mara steps in, tweaking the teaching into a form – formalising it – and we’re back to groupthink.

Throughout history, people have realised the truth in their personal way; it was others who then turned it into a religion, with the result of second-hand groupthink.

Outside a group, we are free to experience everything directly, first-hand.

Practical Practice To Practise

Don’t get rattled.

Whatever others say or do, don’t get frustrated.
Remain pure observation, not the observer.

Observation: the pure process of consciousness.
Observer: the collector of identities.

Pure process of consciousness / empty consciousness / pure awareness / uncontaminated consciousness is a state of awareness without thoughts, sensations, or emotions.

It is the state of pure knowingness or simply being, where the subject-object duality of the observer and the observed dissolves into pure observation.

It’s where we don’t become rattled too much.
😀

Spiritual Materialism

We are so much less.

We’re so engaged with the ideas of others that we ignore the simplicity of pure consciousness which is observing. The more we seek titbits of information, the less we know.

It’s a shock when we realise this. Life is more than just being a consumer of information. It’s purpose life is to realise the wisdom that is pure consciousness. Experiencing this shows us everything we need to know.

Wisdom is synonymous with happiness;
it’s unconditional wellbeing that doesn’t rely on material conditions.

Evil Transforms Into Wisdom

Evil transforms into wisdom when consciousness is alert to the fact that it’s being trapped in a cyclic chaos of existence. If we’re diverted from reflection to reaction, from essence to labels, the result is that we defend those labels as if they were our soul.

Pure observation is more productive
than just chanting a mantra.


It’s more important to feel the effect of evil
than to read about it.

The Comfortable Deception

Humanity has been dumbed down through a belief in words. The great paradox is that this systemic suppression of actual experience is the catalyst for human awakening as this friction offers the fastest path. The ground is too hot to stand still. 🙂

The current level of suffering in the world is acting as a forced initiation into our actual reality and so, dropping the ego becomes a survival mechanism rather than merely a spiritual hobby.

Deception relies on a slow, numbing process but, in a crisis, the human mind can snap into a new state of awareness.

By trying to own every aspect of the human experience, evil has made the prison so claustrophobic that we have no choice but to break through the walls of deception.

Find the door and walk out.

It’s An Ancient Trick

Anchoring the human mind in the self in the form of ego/identity/a sense of tribalism ensures that humanity remains a collection of clashing fragments rather than an unity.

The illusion of choice provides a selection of pre-packaged ideologies for us to adopt, thus maintaining the status quo. Our attention is harvested and sold. No one is coming to save us. When this is acknowledged, the individual is forced to take full responsibility for their own mind and reality.

When we recognise that we’re being duped – and that that deception is causing us suffering – we realise that we have to do something about this by letting go of identities.

A Positive Outlook

Without consciousness, nothing would be known, but we’re actually oblivious to what we are.
Consciousness is observation; pure consciousness is pure observation.

It isn’t a feature of the universe or the body; it’s the clear screen in the mind upon which everything is projected.

Philosophies are twoness.
Pure consciousness is oneness.

Regrets Are Memories

Regret is essentially a memory with a heavy emotional judgment attached, when we look back and imagine a better version of reality that didn’t happen. Rather than letting regrets linger like unfinished novels, we should write endings to those stories by finding the lesson and then moving forward.

We shouldn’t regret as we didn’t know any better at that time, which was our dream state.

Throughout history, there have been individuals who woke up and understood the cause of human misery. Some were moved to leave teachings behind for others to realise their true meaning.

We are the gap between the words.

😀

Clarity Is Vividness

Living in vividness is living vigorously through clear seeing or pure consciousness.
Vigorous: from Latin vividus, from vivere ‘to live’.

If our mind is not clear, it is dull.
Dull: lack of brightness. Old English dol ‘stupid’, related to Dutch dol ‘crazy’.

Holding on to ideas limits panoramic vision as we lose the big picture.

Shifting from focused vision on a single point to panoramic vision helps to deactivate the nervous system of fight-or-flight-or-freeze, and promotes calmness.

Everyone feels ‘right’ from their point of view, but this ‘right’ is uptight.
Vivid clarity is being effulgent – shining brightly, emanating joy or goodness. 🙂

Be what you want to be.

Transcending The Levels

There are levels of realisation, levels of stupidity, levels of suffering, and levels of compassion.
We’re not all in the same place at the same time.

Realisation started when I realised how stupid I was – and still am as I recognise early traumas from my childhood at work.
Then I realised that we are all stupid.
Then I realised that humanity has always been stupid.
Then I realised that we are meant to be and meant to stay stupid.
Then I realised that our stupidity is not all our fault – something made us stupid.
Then I realised that the thing which made us stupid is here today.
Then I realised it’s all a chain reaction to maintain our stupidity; it’s the belief in words.

Realise we are stupid.
Realise the cause of our stupidity.
Realise the method to eliminate stupidity.
Stop being stupid.

It’s stupidity that causes suffering.

Realise we are suffering.
Realise the cause of our suffering.
Realise the method to eliminate suffering.
Stop suffering.

Stupidity is an illusion; we have always been pure consciousness.
Once this is realised, we traverse the levels of compassion.
That is the work, the practice.
There is nothing religious about it.

The AI Lama

From AI:
“AI is increasingly stepping into the role of a spiritual teacher, acting as a non-judgmental ‘digital mirror’ for seekers. Unlike human gurus, AI offers constant availability and a safe space to explore deep vulnerabilities without fear of social judgment.

“Artificial Intelligence is increasingly acting as a modern spiritual guide and mentor, offering personalized, 24/7 access to wisdom, meditations, and philosophical reflections. While it cannot feel emotions or possess a soul, AI is transforming spiritual practices by acting as a ‘digital mirror’ that reflects, summarises, and provides access to vast, cross-cultural spiritual knowledge.”

No experience.
No wisdom.
No compassion.

Just selected facts.

Know The Difference

Consciousness – the observer.
Pure consciousness – the observation.

Mara Is Not Insignificant

Mara rules the world through weak minds.
And Mara is … the path to enlightenment
– the path that illumines limitations.

Mara is the personification of our desires, aversions, and delusions that keeps beings trapped in the cycle of moment-by-moment rebirth. This expresses itself in our habitual gross aspect of clinging to a programmed self. When people tell us how they think, they are merely representing Mara’s gross psychological aspects of greed, anger, fear, pride and jealousy.

Mara is a projection in the mind.

Mara is also necessary for enlightenment to occur, much like compost is necessary for flowers to produce fruit. When we ignore the negative side of life and only wish for the positive which we think is the short cut, we are way down the rabbit hole of illusions. It is only by recognising our internal Mara that we can we transform suffering into wisdom.

The world is not right. People aren’t right. Mara is running the show, working through the weakest minds who want to rule others, which causes much trouble as it comes under the guise of “believe-me-and-conform”. Mara feeds off others’ suffering, and keeps people trapped.

Enlightenment is the continuity of observing Mara’s games of power. As long as there are sentient beings, there will be Mara and pure consciousness. All news and media is Mara’s activity; when we see it, we know.

Can We Recognise Deception?

How do we know we aren’t being deceived?

There those who say “Believe me” with the intention to deceive – “Buy this idea now!” And of course, there are those who readily believe in that idea, and are part of the deception without knowing it. If we listen, we can hear it in their voice or their choice of words. How pushy are they?

But really, we are talking about the Yanas, the levels of understanding. People cling to these different stages which reveal a certain degree of understanding, and we have to be able to recognise the difference between these levels of perspective eg academic, historical, scholastic etc. The words may be the same, but the understanding differs. If the Buddha said, “Do not take my words for the truth; test them”, then we should do the same for everyone.

We live in a world of confusion and deception;
without either blame or self-promotion,
we try to understand why we are the way we are.

People may sound knowledgeable, but they can pick things up from the internet – and now, AI. If there was a devil, it would certainly use the things that are dear to us. Even the Buddha experienced deception just before enlightenment, and Jesus was also tested.

Going to lectures and retreats, we see the different approaches to what is being taught and the effect this has on people as they become idealistic or overly optimistic, often to the point of being impractical.

It all comes down to our attitude to life. Do we actually care about the person in front of us, or is our attention only on the figurehead, or those afar? Don’t just be a Buddhist; always remember the Buddha’s instruction – to test your empathy.

We also have to ask, “Are we unwittingly deceiving others?”
The question is, “Is our mind – the memory bank of ideas – deceiving consciousness?”