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.

There Are Two Powers At Work

There are two powers at work –
the moral and the immoral.

Wisdom eliminates confusion.
Confidence eliminates doubt.

Confusion eliminates wisdom.
Doubt eliminates confidence.

Is Buddhism Antisocial?

Buddhism cultivates the social conditions favourable for an individual’s realisation of their true reality, which is pure consciousness. To rest in pure consciousness, we have to be a decent, compassionate person. 

This means that we don’t cling to political ideologies which lack empathic understanding and only serve to divide people. We are not a set of others’ beliefs.

Buddhism is about what we all have in common, and that is pure consciousness. 

Mara (demonic mind) feeds off conflict like a narcissist, creating conditions to brutalise people’s minds, preventing them from realising their autonomous power to be mentally free, thereby maintaining true morality beyond bias.

Buddhism is not a ideology or religion;
it is the pure way of seeing that’s important
in order to see what’s important. 

🙂

Distracted to Insanity

When we are distracted by images, words and ideas,
we are not in our right mind. 
Our right mind is clarity.

Unable to think straight,
we are obsessed with and addicted to others’ ideas.

Ideas, words and images deceive consciousness.
If we’re talking to a person filled with concepts,
there is no communication, just projection.

Distraction is a fool’s game.

Delay And Overreaction

Delay and overreaction are the manifestation of aversion and desire. Both create consequences that are allowed to happen, and which govern us. 

Just as we are controlled by our personal likes and dislikes, so too we are governed en masse by organised delays and overreactions. It’s what the ‘news’ does to us every day, causing our thoughts and emotions to take sides and creating conflict.

We merely have to look at events created by delay or overreaction that blaze the trail for more of the same. This is the world’s history. Once enacted, there is no turning back unless we wake up and recognise how the world is run – and how we are run. 

To transcend our common affliction of groupthink, each individual has to recognise that they are addicted, either through procrastination or excitement. 

Waking up is being aware of our true reality,
rather than the projections in our minds. 

We Live In Expectation

Expectation: a strong belief that something will happen.

We’re led to believe that supernatural things can happen, so we expect or hope that they will.

This clouds our judgment about what’s actually going on. We’re fed supernatural stories and elaborate displays that stick in our minds and, even if we don’t believe in them, we still react to those who do. When people meditate, they believe something special will take place when, in actuality, nothing happens. This can cause us to feel disappointed or inferior.

This ‘nothing happening’ is what it’s all about. When nothing’s happening, there is clarity, which we aren’t used to, unfortunately, and so we don’t value it. 

In reality, our needs are very simple, spending our precious time undoing our karmic programming.

If, however, we want something interesting, we’re given something interesting and, as a result, we will always miss the point, adding to our karma. This is the indication that Mara is at work.

As we ascend the levels, we look back and wonder, “Why did I ever believe that?” This very question is the precursor to the next step. 

Mara activity is all about ‘believe me’ – it cannot help itself. 
Don’t believe anyone, even the Buddha. 
Know, through direct raw experience.

What Does It Mean To Be Emptiness?

It’s very simple and ordinary 
– there’s nothing weird about it.

Emptiness is the moment of being free of ideas, just aware, empty of identity, mere perception, barely cognisant. It’s that simple. There is no idea of ‘me’ and what I think involved; thoughts become activated a moment later when our programmed memory kicks in.

Emptiness is natural to all sentient beings, but we’re too involved in our species’ way of thinking to realise this simple pure state. 

Emptiness is valuing the perfect contentment of the Buddha realm – the clarity of bliss.

“What is bliss?”
Contentment in our understanding.

“I can’t be bliss, I have too much to worry about. 
I have ideas about how to make things better.”

Okay.
Do you see what creates the problem we’re in?
🙂

Sapience Means Wise

We are meant to be wise, and not just clever: 
all creatures have to be clever to survive.

Cleverness is knowing about reality.
Wisdom is being the reality.

Words Are Projections

Words reveal the state of our mind, 
and they also reveal the state of consciousness.

If we cling to words, we become blind to experience.

When we are silent, 
the mind is clear, consciousness is pure, 
and we are what we are.

Better The Devil You Know 

Better the devil you know
than the devil you don’t.

Really!

Demons come in many charming disguises.
Be careful what you conjure up!

Charm: control or achieve as if by magic. Middle Englis:incantation or magic spell, from Latin  ‘carmen’ – song, verse, incantation.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

We don’t have to become a projection of others’ thoughts.
We can change!

It Only Seems Real

When we encounter pictures, words, conversations … these seem real, but they’re only recording machines. We wake up when we realise that we’ve heard it all before. 

Things seem real only because we’ve became used to them, and want them that way. We want to believe the stories, while not knowing whether they’re real, or a simulation.

We wake up when we recognise the script that’s being acted out every day. There is nothing real about our lives; the reality is life itself – consciousness. Pure consciousness is devoid of language, speculation, and fantasy.

Reality is acknowledging the charade.

Charade: an absurd pretence intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance. An act or event that is obviously false, although represented as true.
From French charrado ‘conversation’, from charra ‘chatter’,

Don’t Believe A Word

Words are spells that cast images in the mind, 
and we believe in these distractions. 

The reality of our natural wisdom is beyond words. 

When we drop all our words,
what’s left?

The Naked Truth

The naked truth needs no embellishments.

Truth is that which never changes, and that’s consciousness. 
Consciousness is naked because there is nothing covering it,
except our ideas.

Happiness: No Longer Governed By Others’ Thoughts

Once we’re free of collective thinking, 
we start to see how collective thinking came about – 
by suggestions, which turn into beliefs, and create bewilderment.

Happiness is being free of confusion.

A Sobering Thought

Beings in infinite space billions of light years away from Earth will have the same pure consciousness as us. All creatures are aware, and therefore conscious, and experience feelings. They may have bigger heads, greater minds or microscopic brains, but pure consciousness will be the same (although most beings can only function with a confused consciousness, just like us. 🙂 )

This being so, all creatures in the infinite universe are also governed by attraction, repulsion and indifference which makes them unstable – until they realise their true reality.

The purpose of life 
is to transform confusion into clarity.

The Problem Is ‘You’

If you don’t realise our ultimate reality, 
you are the problem.

You/I/ego is a self-designation built on collective ideas which creates an illusion of an identity that gets in the way of pure perception. We become so caught up in others’ thoughts that this limits our ability to understand pure perception – the clarity of being.

It’s not all our fault;
we are led to believe that what others say is true
– even the Buddha. 🙂

The Fool And Infinity

Fools either ignore infinity or cannot comprehend it. 

Infinity cannot be imagined, 
only realised through infinite consciousness.

What is important is here and now,
not then.

The Truth Of Existence

The essence of a person is pure consciousness but, because of a confused mind, consciousness adopted a form, a projection. We’re doing this right now.

The purpose of life is to remember what we are, rather than to maintain the confusion of what we think we are, where we cannot get to grips with the understanding that we are infinite consciousness in an infinite universe.

We cannot think about infinity; 
we can only realise it within infinite consciousness.
A finite mind, full of ideas, cannot fathom an infinite mind.

It is the same with ultimate truth.
We cannot think about ultimate truth;
we can only realise that we are ultimate truth.

Fantasising Versus Realising

When we fantasise, we indulge in daydreaming.
We fantasise about what’s ‘out there’.

When we understand that fantasising is a distraction,
we realise that consciousness is the arbiter of reality,
and we are no longer daydreaming and fantasising.

Philosophy is fantasising; it’s knowing about.
The mind that fantasises is a fantasy.

Pure consciousness is clarity; it’s pure knowing.
The clarity of mind – pure consciousness – is the centre of the infinite universe.

It’s All About The Quality Of Consciousness

We are consciousness. We are not this mind, full of ideas of gain and fame; that is a fool’s errand, a futile wild-goose chase in an attempt to realise the ultimate truth of our being.

This will only make sense to a practitioner who has resolved to realise reality, rather than being merely a speculator. Realisation is due to the elimination of the levels of fixations about our reality.

Sentient beings do not realise the trap they’re in, which is based on collective ignorance – the belief in what others say. 

The more we realise, the more we understand how foolish we have been.
It takes courage and kindness to realise the truth.

Heaven In Hell 2

Heaven is clarity – our awakened state.
Hell is opinions – our dream state.

Clarity: divine splendour.
Opinion: thought, belief.

Hell is a contaminated mind.
Heaven is the pure state of mind.

Looking For Answers?

Looking for answers?

Look within the mind.
The observation of how it works tells us everything.

The truth is definitely not about adopting answers.

Being Aware In Experience

Being aware in experience is a continual process of non-attachment, therefore there is nothing to let go of. This is our pure state of being. 

A confused life is based on opinions about experience, 
creating a narrative of ‘my experiences’.

A meditative life is one where we just deal with things, 
free of worry.

That is a happy life. 

Distraction And Over-Reaction

This is how the world is … trained.

We as humans, get over-stimulated and carried away; we lose our minds to fascinations. For most of us, this is the process of life, as we’re constantly distracted and over-reacting.

For a practitioner, this cycle of existence is but a reminder to stay loose and centred, happy to be free of the ‘merry-go-round’.

Being free is remaining as pure consciousness.
Meditation is the method.

Has The Cheese Slid Off Your Cracker?

Are we separated from reality?

Of course, we’d all say no.
But do we truly know what reality is?

Asking this very question 
will start the process to put the cheese back.
🙂

All Sentient Beings Are Scientists

All sentient beings are scientists;
we have to be to survive.

As humans, we have more and more information available to us – in fact, too much. When we investigate we look through our mind-microscope to see the structure and cause of whatever is observed. Is it good or harmful? But to do this, we need a clean mind, not one with dirty, pre-conceived ideas that cloud our vision. Unfortunately, we usually borrow from others investigations, not realising that they too may have a dirty view. 🙂

All is not what it seems. We’re constantly being worked and manipulated to believe that everything presented to us is reality.

As scientists, we have to see why things are happening on both physical and ethereal plans at the level of consciousness. There are mischievous entities that play with our mind; we meet these every day, and we simply have to be aware of them. Once they’re recognised, they go elsewhere. 

A clear mind is a powerful tool.
Meditation cleans the mind.

Bodhisattva Vow

The right intention.

There are nine levels of bodhisattvas, up to enlightenment. This vow to work for the benefit of others is not to be taken lightly; taking this vow means one’s life will never be the same again.

Bodhisattva Vow

Just as the earth and the other three elements, together with space,
eternally nourish and sustain all beings, 
so may I become that source of nourishment and sustenance
which maintains all beings situated throughout space, 
as long as all have not attained peace.

When the Sugatas of former times committed themselves to the Bodhicitta, 
they gradually established themselves in the practice of a Bodhisattva.
So do I commit myself to the Bodhicitta for the welfare of beings,
and will gradually establish myself in the practice of a Bodhisattva.

Today, my birth has become fruitful; my birth as a human is justified.
Today I am born in the Buddha family; I am now a child of the Buddha.

Now I am determined to perform those acts appropriate to my family;
I will not violate the purity of this faultless noble family.

Just as a blind man wandering about comes upon a jewel in a heap of refuse,
so apparently by chance, the Bodhicitta is born in me.

That supreme amrita destroying death. 
The inexhaustible hidden treasure relieving the universal poverty.

The supreme cure for calming the universal ill. 
The tree which shelters beings weary of wandering the paths of samsara.

The vehicle for all travellers passing over distress. 
The moon of mind which cools the heat of desire.

The great sun dispelling the obscurity of ignorance. 
The butter made from churning the milk of the Dharma.

The great happiness for those travellers wandering the path of samara,
searching for objects of enjoyment.

In the presence of all the Buddhas, I have invited the Tathagatas and all beings as my guests. 
Devas and Asuras rejoice.

“Taking the Bodhisattva vow is an expression of settling down and making ourselves at home in this world. We are not concerned that somebody is going to attack us or destroy us. We are constantly exposing ourselves for the benefit of sentient beings. In fact, we are even giving up our ambition to attain enlightenment in favour of relieving the suffering and difficulties of people.

“Nevertheless, helplessly, we attain enlightenment anyway. Bodhisattvas and great tathagatas in the past have taken this step, and we too can do so. It is simply up to us whether we are going to accept this richness, or reject it and settle for a poverty-stricken mentality.”

– Chogyam Trungpa. 


Unless We Practise

Unless we practise, we won’t know what the words mean. 
But what do we practise? 

We practise being aware of both the habitual patterns in our mind which cause conflict, and that which observes this pattern of behaviour.

We can talk about Madhyamaka, Abhidharma, and this or that Sutra; we can chant text, wave vajras … but if we cannot control our arrogance that destroys genuine kindness, then our practice is useless. When we become academics, we become isolationists to protect ourselves and shun others.

Practice is to practise change.

(Grammar alert: practice is something to do, while practise is actually doing it.)