The Quality Of The Present Moment
The quality of the present moment
was created by
the quality of the previous moment.
The quality of the future moment
will be created by
the quality of the present moment.
That’s karma for you.
You can trust Karma.
Whatever situation we find ourselves in, whatever thoughts arise, whatever attitude we display is due to previous actions and reactions. Makes sense? Just look at how you got to where you are now. It’s the reason you are looking at this screen.
Once we know how to look, our karma is our teacher, and we recognise why it is so important. It’s like being aware of what is hypnotising you. It’s the escape route!
Fighting or enjoying our situation both serve to create more problems/karma; after all, fighting and enjoying are merely aversion and desire! Here, we are working beyond our relative state; we are working with the relative and absolute as a unity. This is profound stuff.
The quality of our practice can either increase or decrease perception. It pays to pay attention, or we will find ourselves in karmic debt. The result of spiritual practice is to exhaust all karma, and not gain more. Our choice – freedom or prison.
It doesn’t matter what status we hold in life, we can still be high practitioners. One such adept was a doorman at a brothel. Another crushed sesame seeds, and yet another was a shepherd called “Big Nose”.
Emaho!
Once again, noble children, listen well!
In the self-luminous presence of awareness,
essence, nature and expression, the three kayas,
the five buddhas, the five wisdoms and others,
are all complete.
The essence of awareness does not possess the slightest existence
such as colour and shape.
This is emptiness, dharmakaya.
The natural expression of emptiness as luminosity is sambhogakaya.
The function of manifold things arising unhindered is nirmanakaya.
A way to illustrate these three kayas through example
is as follows:
Dharmakaya is like a crystal mirror.
Sambhogakaya is like its transparent bright nature.
Nirmanakaya is like its unlimited capacity to reflect images.
Primordially, the nature of all beings is the three kayas.
If they could only recognise their own nature,
they would simultaneously be enlightened
without practising for even an instant…
Shabkhar Tsokdrug Rangdrol
(Big Nose)
from Song 7: “The Flight of the Garuda”
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. 
Hello Tony, Kathie,
Please allow me to add the following to your blog as a reponse to your latest article “THE QUALITY OF THE PRESENT MOMENT”
“..What is actually important is: ‘Here and Now’. ‘Now’ is definitely now. We try to experience what is available there, on the spot. There’s no point in thinking, that a past did exist, that we could have now.
This is ‘Now’: This very moment.
Nothing mystical, just ‘Now’, very simple, straightforward…. and from that ‘now-ness’ however, arises a sense of intelligence, always, that you are constantly interacting with the reality, one by one, spot by spot, constantly. We actually experience fantastic precision, always. But, we are threatened by the ‘Now’ so, we jump to the past or the future.
Paying attention to the materials that exist in our life — such a rich life that we lead — all these choices take place all the time but none of them are regarded as ‘bad’ or ‘good’ per se. Everything we experience are unconditional experiences. They don’t come along with a label by saying:
‘this is regarded as bad’, ‘this is good’,
but, we experience them but, we don’t actually pay heed to them, properly. We don’t actually regard that we are going somewhere. We regard that as a hassle, waiting to be dead. That’s the problem.
And that is not trusting the ‘now-ness’ properly. That what is actually experienced ‘Now’ possesses a lot of powerful things. It is so powerful that we can’t face it, therefore we have to borrow from the past and invite the future all the time.
Maybe that’s why we seek religion. Maybe that’s why we march in the street. Maybe that’s why we complain to society. Maybe that’s why we vote for the presidents. It’s quite ironic though and very funny indeed.”
— Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, L.A. Lecture, 1983