Simplified Dharma.
Our true nature is awareness, pure awareness. That’s what we are! However, most of the time, we are something else: occupied, vacant or asleep. And so we are not aware of awareness. We are only aware of something outside ourselves. We are mainly distracted by clinging to images in the mind, and thereby clinging to an image of ourself which we have acquired: a generated “I”.
The recognition of pure awareness is called Dzogchen practice in the Tibetan Nyingma tradition, referred to as Rigpa. It is not really something that one practises: it is merely recognition of awareness, and in looking at that awareness ‘no thing’ is found. That non-finding is emptiness – your essence – pure awareness.
It’s that simple.
So what’s the problem? Well, we have spent eons either occupied, vacant or asleep, and it has become bit of a habit. So we need methods to cut through these evil habits 😉 That’s all! Evil is only our consciousness (that’s mind activity) clinging to likes and dislikes, because it is ignorant of its true nature. That’s all!
We start by being relaxed about……..everything…….as every thing has no permanent, true existence of its own. Things are created by causes and conditions. They dwell for a while, and then dissolve. Every thing only seems to be real.
The first step is recognising awareness: then we start to wake up. This happens when we recognise that we are suffering, dissatisfied with the illusory dream of being either occupied, vacant or asleep.
The only reality is our pure awareness, which is never born and never dies.
Dharma is cutting through the illusion we currently live in. Whether this illusion is nice or horrid, it is still an impermanent state. If a thing is real, it can never not be real. The only reality is that which is constant – our pure awareness.
Oh, and there is a bonus! When pure awareness is recognised…you can’t help loving. Compassion naturally arises.
This is so simple. In fact, it is our origin. It is being ordinary. So if this is ordinary, what on earth are we doing all the time?! 😉 Playing with whistles and bells and buttons and bows.
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. 
Too much mind and it seems like you are still trying to prove it to yourself. “Go back now to your cave and do not make a sound, make your body like a corpse and your mind like the sky”…
Hello Yeshe Rabsal,
Wonderful advice.
I do not have a cave, I have a tent. 🙂
Tony
Hi Yeshe.
Surely, if we stop “trying to prove it” (I’m assuming you mean the Dharma) to ourselves, trying and testing it, the teaching of the Buddha just become another religion as we’re living on belief.
Kathie
Oh, and Tony, I’d love to see a photo of your tent … 🙂
Lao-tsu and Zhuangsi were a couple of hundred years before the Buddha and separated by the Himalayas, yet they were able to give us proof that what the Buddha would later teach is spot on. The self is what deceives us. Clinging to notions (language, words and preconceptions, is how I imagine Zhuangzi would have put it) is what obscures the Dharma. Each moment is of itself, not what we anticipate before, or describe to ourselves after, it happens.
Hello Pablo,
So too were the Vedas. The Buddha must have known about them.
Our karma makes us predictable as it is a constant re-enactment.
Tony
Is it predictable? Once we become aware, aren’t we able to change its course?
Most are unaware of our habitual attachments i.e. karma. Once we realise that karma is our teacher, karma changes.
Tony
An Arahat, I hear, steps off the wheel of karma. Stops it all together. I understand this is what Theravadans teach.
There are many levels and traditions. Some have a wheel to step off, some realise the wheel never existed. Dzogchen is like that.
Tony
Thanks Tony, for you replies. Dzogchen is the only Buddhist system I haven’t investigated.
Then we have much to discuss! 😀
Tony
Yes.
Dear Tony and Pablo,
Hello! I have perused this fascinating essay and the comments with great interest, and thus decide to join the conversations here. Quoted below, these five paragraphs are indeed the essence of Tony’s blog:
Thank you, Tony, for indulging us with another of your many pertinent and well-written essays.
Given the subject matters of this essay, I would like to add that beside social sciences (anthropology, archaeology, criminology and sociology), natural sciences (biology, botany, zoology, palaeontology, geology and so on) and behavioural sciences (psychology, psychobiology, anthropology and cognitive science), in the more metaphysical, ontological and epistemological domains, I have had my fair share of exploring philosophy and spirituality over the years without sacrificing academic rigour and intellectual potency. A good example is my visually enticing discussions of some perennially useful ideas and philosophies presented in great detail in a highly engaging and expansive post entitled “🔄📈📉 Change Rules and Moment Matters: How to Stay in the Moment 🔖🕰️🔂“, published at
As you will see, the contents of my said post is very congruent with those of yours. Please turn on your finest speakers or headphones, as the said post will be playing one of my musical compositions to you automatically. It is preferrable to use a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen to view the rich multimedia contents available for heightening your multisensory enjoyment at my blog, as the limitations of iPad, iPhone, tablet or other portable devices frequently result in very dissatisfactory and highly problematic handling of the complexities of my blog contents, severely curtailing their readability and distorting their formats.
This post discusses psychology, mindfulness, meditation, spirituality, philosophy, religion, Nature and so on. In certain places, the discussions do become somewhat erudite, though no less revealing. I welcome your input since I am curious to know what you make of my said post as well as your perspectives on those matters discussed in my post.
There are many quotations distributed throughout the said post. The quotees include Buddha, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Werner Hans Erhard, Jack Kornfield and Elizabeth Thornton.
Hopefully, this post can be of considerable interest to you, insofar as I have distilled a great deal of observations and conclusions along similar themes. One of the investigated areas concerns being present in the moment with awareness and (engaged) mindfulness. There are also detailed analyses on existential issues, including those pertaining to “change” as well as “being” and “becoming”.
Given our mutual interest in the philosophy, spirituality and practicality of recognising awareness, I would like to commend you highly for exploring dharma, the eternal truth and order, so well!
Wishing both of you a wonderful December doing or enjoying whatever that satisfies you the most, whether aesthetically, physically, intellectually or spiritually!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
Dear SoundEagle,
As there saying goes … “Birds of feather flock together” 🙂
Tony