Spiritual Knowledge Is Useless Without Meditation
Meditation is the experience of knowledge,
and experience leads to realisation.
Meditation is sitting erect and relaxed, being aware of the thoughts taking place in the mind, not following or being driven by them. Just let them be; they come and they go.
Meditation is being aware of the awareness that is aware of those thoughts. That awareness is consciousness, and that is what we are – consciousness.
When purely at rest within consciousness, that is known as non-meditation.
The method of meditation is dualistic, as there is a reference involved: when we think, “I am meditating”, we are referring to something that is in the past, a millimoment ago, and this is dualistic.
When purely at rest within consciousness, that is non-meditation, just being. There is nothing to refer to. There is no ‘I’ involved, and this is non-dualistic.
This experience is sometimes called ’emptiness’ as it has no contaminations, and so we call it pure consciousness. Like space, it is beginningless and endless. There is nothing to gain but the realisation of ultimate truth of what we are, the inner peace that has compassion for all misunderstandings.
Once we have established our reality of pure consciousness, then consciousness is aware of all that obscures consciousness. And that reveals what and why things are happening in the world.
For protection, we meditate.
It makes everything clear.
Evil, at its deeper level, knows esoteric knowledge, but does not practise resting in emptiness as it sees nothing to gain. That is its weakness. We might think that commerce, politics and entertainment have nothing to do with spirituality, and we would be wrong in thinking that. The deeper levels of commerce, politics and entertainment are carried out by well-programmed, witless minions, manipulating and contaminating consciousness on a massive scale. But evil does not realise that consciousness cannot be contaminated, but only distracted with our consent.
Ignorance is consenting to be distracted.
When we recognise the distraction,
we are liberated.
For protection, we meditate.
It makes everything clear.
The living experience is what is,
NOW.
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. 
Ignorance is consenting to be distracted.
When we recognise the distraction,
we are liberated.
NOW!
… wow!
Transcript: “Free in the moment of seeing”, means the very moment of seeing your own nature, (in this first and second instance…) there is no thought. Thought has vanished.
There isn’t anything more fantastic than being totally free of thought. Because there is nothing else in this world that can totally bring a halt to thinking…you can blow up nuclear bombs and use forms and techniques and so forth but nothing will stop thoughts. But the very moment that you turn your attention towards your own mind, it is evident that it is simply an empty cognizance with no thing whatsoever. It is empty. But yet there is the seeing of that because mind is also cognizant. These are the primordial original unity that is empty and cognizant. But the thought happens we don’t believe that this is really it because it’s too easy. There is nothing more easy than this. Just like that. OK.
Don’t think of anything. Having totally abandoned thinker and what is thought of, at that moment you’re only seeing that there’s no thinker. It’s not something you gradually approach, like a spirit entering you. This is what is meant by the phrase, “one moment makes a difference, in one moment complete enlightenment”. That moment, like this (drops hand into lap), is the unmistaken Buddha mind. Don’t project outwardly, don’t concentrate inwardly, don’t keep a state in-between. Totally give up any mental effort. (pause) This is what (Buddhist teacher?) called utterly, sheer emptiness. You don’t need to block your five senses, not at all. Like this, but just remaining like this, everything is very clearly experienced. But when you start to investigate a label, you’re involved in thought. This is what Padmasambhava says in the sevenfold supplication, “No matter what appears to the realm, in the field of your vision, before your eyes, the world, the beings, and so forth, even though experienced, just let it be without any fixation, in other words, disown everything. The dissolving of subject and object is the pure form of the Deity”.
Whatever moves or occurs in the realm of your ears, any sound, or the sounding, whether pleasant or unpleasant, just let be in the continuity of sound being emptiness, because no matter what the sounds, in your hearing, is indivisible from emptiness — the empty resounding beyond arising and ceasing is the voice of the victorious ones. Do not get involved in contests, leading or following. By leaving your thinking to itself, it dissolves naturally into Dharmakaya. Thinking means our thoughts of this (5:19 : ?) if you just let it be, it naturally dissolves. (Claps)
So true wakefulness, don’t do anything to it, accept or reject, hope or fear, then it’s enough. That is sufficient. So what you naturally need to train in, is to not image something by an act of meditating but also not to be distracted for even a second. Being distracted is the same as forgetting, and it is said “on the path of distraction, the demons lie in ambush”.
The moment you look towards and acknowledge empty cognizance, that is called “having recognized”. Then there is the continuity of empty cognizance which you don’t need to fabricate in any way, just don’t forget it. Once you forget and start to think, then the continuity is lost. The moment you look, the empty cognizance is seen, recognized. And then allow the continuity of this seeing to continue, be sustained, but automatically. Then for the ordinary person, again a though occurs. Then you remember, “Oh, I forgot”. Then again acknowledge there or notice, “Who forgot?” and simply recognize again and again you arrive back in this state of recognizing your natural face. That doesn’t mean sitting and straining, trying not to be distracted. It’s like ringing the bell once, and the sound continues, it doesn’t mean ringing the bell continuously. Once the continuities fades, that means we start forgetting, and we get involved in thought. Then again, we notice, “Oh, I forgot, I got carried away”. Then, alright, then look towards (your own mind), and again you are back recognizing. And again there is a natural stability in a continuous state of empty cognizance.
We need to train in that, short moments, many times. We have learned to live in this life through training. We have learned how to behave, how to move about, learned how to eat, (Translator states, Oh, sorry, I got this wrong), We have to train in all the activities of this life, for example, while eating, you taste the food, and you start to think about the food, then notice, “Oh, I got carried away”. Again, recognize, while eating, that moment, you arrive back, vividly, in the state of the essence. Then you forget again, you get lost, while walking about, moving in your room; you can still recognize the Buddha nature when you lie down to sleep but if you’re diligent, also recognize again. Actually, there is no time when you are not allowed to recognize nature of mind, even when you sit on the loo. It is said like this, “in the naked state of dharmadhatu, which is unimaginable, relax in the impeccable state of awareness”. If thought occurs, it arises from yourself, it dissolves back into yourself. Any thought that occurs is your own expression; comes out of your own essence. It is only when forgetting the essence that the expression takes a form of a thought. But the moment you recognize your own expression, it arises out of yourself and dissolves back into yourself, meaning into the expanse of the essence, this is what you need to train in, to become used to. There is no other meditation or object apart from that. (Not as much as a dot, even?). But if you forget, get distracted, you are involved in thoughts. So please train in this. That is the practice. This is what the Buddha taught in the past and today he has nothing to say besides this.”
Thank you Marcel for this transcription.
The Four Dharmas of Gampopa from marcia schmidt on Vimeo.
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Hello LED Camping Light,
Love the name!
I was just talking to my wife about this very thing. Humanity is constantly being bombarded by excitements, entertainments and promises of better things to come.
So our attention is being caught and held, and distracting us from looking at our own consciousness, and being free of all this glitter.
Thank’s for your comment…It helps.
Tony