There Are Three Constants In The Universe
Space, pure awareness and formula.
There is order in chaos.
In the teachings, much is spoken about the constancy of space and pure awareness – but formula? Nothing! I have brought this subject up many times in teachings and all I get is a blank look from the teacher – and from the students, who think I’m going off-topic because they haven’t heard the teacher say this. Dare I say it…their reactions are sometimes even hostile.
“Who is this strange fellow, talking about formula?”
“It’s not in the text!”
Exactly.
And actually, it is!
I’ve lost count at the put downs I’ve had to endure, because students become caught up in the idea that things are an illusion, and in the acquisition of answers*. Of course things/phenomena are impermanent and have no reality, and are therefore an illusion.
But. Things will always come about through causes and conditions = formula!
The 3 poisons.
The 3 kayas.
The 6 realms.
The 12 links of origination.
The 8 consciousnesses.
The 5 skanda.
The 84.000 types of confusion.
A biscuit.
Suns and planets.
Emotions.
E=MC2.
…the list is endless.
Everything comes about through formulae. The thing itself is an illusion; the formula is not. We use the formula to discover a thing’s basic nature. For me this is important, as then we start to recognise the formula in others and ourself. Personality is a programme, a formula: push the right button and off the formula goes.
You don’t know until you try it.
Just like the Buddha said.
*Before I bought my first 35mm camera, I went to several shops asking questions and receiving answers, so that at the next shop I would be armed with an intelligent question, and so on. Finally returning to the original shop with full info on a particular camera, I now sounded like an ‘expert’… and I hadn’t even used the camera yet! Going to teaching is a bit like that 😉
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. 
I think learned about formulae as Process (the creative Process, the perceptual Process, the Process of knowing etc.) But then Process seemed to be the subtle body and now it seems it is my Soul. Whatever. My Teacher said “Trust the Process, It will take care of everything.” Now I say “Trust the Process, Pure Awareness will take care of everything.”
The creative process or creative universal principle could be said to be love in action.
Pure love comes about by virtue of pure awareness.
Love is the light in a dark world, and light is clarity.