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.

No One Became Enlightened By Meditating

No one became enlightened by meditating;
they became enlightened through dropping the meditation.

Meditation is merely the method for training our wandering mind by relaxing, focusing and calming. Once the mind becomes still, we (consciousness) are aware of being aware, but this is still a duality – me, and the stillness and awareness. We are being something.

The moment we just drop the method, or attachment to the method, consciousness (we) is empty of contaminations. The senses are fully open, but non-conceptual. There is no I-identity; there is just pure consciousness. Non-duality is being one with everything.

It is in this non-dual state that, when we come into contact with anything, there is just pure experience without recall to memory. Memory obscures pure experience.

If we think meditation will get us to ‘nirvana’ or that we’ll go into a higher altered state, we are deluded.

Enlightenment is dropping attachment and uncovering what is already present, naturally.

Short moments, many times is the way.

A Good Memory Is A Distraction

Memorising words to repeat them inhibits spontaneous wisdom.

We may learn all the scriptures and be ready to recite them, but can we apply them wisely in reality? We don’t have to be scholars, and carry around a library of words; pure experience in the present moment tells us everything we need to know.

This is the path without hardship.

What Is Spiritual?

Thinking that some things are spiritual while others are not is to totally misunderstand what ‘spiritual’ is. We may think being spiritual is “pie in the sky”—something unlikely to happen, or something that we hope will happen. This is living in ignorance of actual reality.

That which is called ‘spiritual’ is non-material consciousness; it is life itself, and it’s what we are. We don’t have to become; we are. What we think and do is down to our level of understanding—or misunderstanding.

Going to a monastery or going to the toilet makes no difference. Anyway, monasteries have toilets, don’t they? 🙂 These are both of one taste, of being and experiencing before identifying. Is there a demarkation line? Spiritual … not spiritual … that’s as daft as there being ‘holy’ places.

Identifying is what materialists do, binding themselves to an idea, whether religious or secular. We can be also be bound as an atheist or an agnostic, and we can equally be bound by power, wealth, fame…

Someone with an exotic spiritual name isn’t any more spiritual than our cat or neighbour. They may be more advanced in knowledge (although our cat is cunning in getting its own way) but not in being.

We do not have to be clever or intelligent to realise what we are. If we’re looking for something ‘higher’, we are misunderstanding our ultimate reality of that which is looking. 🙂

Once we get the gist of this, we can start to meditate to realise that pure consciousness or empty cognisance is our pure state of being.

‘Spiritual’ is plain and unsophisticated.
All creatures are, in essence, spiritual.
We are deceived to think otherwise.

Negative And Positive

Being negative is seeing everything as wrong.
Being positive is seeing being negative.

In the seeing is freedom and wisdom.
Whether we value that moment or not is down to our understanding.

Truth Will Always Be Suppressed

If people knew the truth, they could no long be controlled by belief.

Once a person knows the truth of reality, they are free of beliefs provided by others. As long as people believe in an agenda—’things to do’—they will never become whole, right, at peace.

We are here to realise what we truly are—the spirit of pure awareness—rather than what we are told we are—a consumer of others’ ideas. For this realisation, we need personal time and space to deepen our contemplation and meditation; anything else is surplus to requirements.

Stupidity is thinking we’re can to read or hear the truth, and then we’ll know it. This is an extremely subtle subterfuge in order to achieve the goal of suppressing the truth. We can be so near, but so far.

Meditation is free of all concepts.
Meditation is just being aware.
—not aware of something or other, just aware.

It’s so simple, but we are so easily distracted.

Belief Is Going Round In Circles

Belief is going round in circles.
Knowing is direct.

Thinking we know is belief.
Knowing is direct, spontaneous, silent experience.

“I Can’t Find The Ultimate Truth Within”

“I can’t find the ultimate truth within.”
The ultimate truth is that which is looking out.
“What good does that do me?”

The truth within is clarity which, in the dictionary, is divine splendour. That should give us a clue to its value.

We are so enamoured with the physical world that we do not experience what it is that has fallen in love with things, inventions, art, music … ideas. These things captivate and confine our understanding, and much time and money is spent to keep these industries going. Why do you think that is?

The modern world is full of contraptions that we use and worship, but which are, in truth, just more distraction. The ultimate truth within is pure consciousness that needs no inventions.

When truth within is realised, then we have no problems with untruth, the misunderstanding of reality.

If we do not know someone is a thief, a liar or a narcissist,
we have a problem.

When we know some is a thief, liar or a narcissist,
we don’t have a problem—we are prepared.

We Are Nothing Special

We do not have to be special to realise our true reality of pure consciousness. It may not seem that way because of all the elaborate displays we see and all the stories we hear, but it’s just a matter of consciousness (which is what we are) realising that there is no other reality. Reality is that which can never change.

People run around the world looking for artefacts and old scriptures, when the ultimate truth has always been within sentient beings – we are the artefacts and the texts :-). Our true reality is so simple that it’s too boring for most people, as they have learnt to love the elaborate displays, and to repeat the wonderful stories.

Our timeless problem is that are excited by wonder; we love intrigue, arousing the curiosity, interest and fascination that Mara supplies in abundance.

Intrigue: early 17th century, ‘to deceive, to cheat’): from French ‘intriguer’ – to tangle, to plot, to puzzle, make curious.

Rather than believing in the enchantments conjured up for us.
life is simply to realise what we are.

It’s nice being no body.

If We Think It Doesn’t Matter…

If we think it doesn’t matter,
then life doesn’t matter.

Life is what we are, which is consciousness.
Life isn’t what we do.
If we don’t appreciate this, we will have a few interests, grow old, become ill and die.

When we actually realise that we are, in fact, consciousness, our life—and the meaning of life—changes. This doesn’t mean doing things ‘consciously’; that merely makes a beautiful samsara, seeking happiness but never being quite satisfied.

We meditate, falling silent and becoming watchful.
We stop all the mental comings and goings of thoughts.
We then realise that there is nothing else happening but pure watchfulness, and then we get it.
We are pure consciousness.

That is our absolute nature, and the ultimate truth of the universe. Once we know this truth, we also know what is not truth—the assumptions, the mistakes, the lies.

It matters because no one can ever pull the wool over our eyes again. Plus we have compassionate understanding for those who think this doesn’t matter, as we too were like that. Something always happens in a timely way to wake us up. The practice is staying awake. 🙂

I Gave Up The Blog Yesterday …

… but there’s still too much mischief-making going on, starting at the top.

Mischief-making: the action of deliberately creating trouble for other people.

(I actually give up the blog every day.)
🙂

A Problem With Talking To People

It’s just Chinese whispers … pass it on.

Chinese whispers (pass it on) is a situation in which a piece of information is passed from one person to the next, and is changed slightly each time it’s told. We enable evil through careless talk.

Our major problem is that we cannot listen. We hear sounds and catch a word or two, and then halfway through a sentence, we’ve already jumped into our mind – our reference library. It is from the mind that we judge and react … re-enact … and add a bit to make it sound as if it’s original.

As long as people do not know how their mind works, we cannot rely on their evaluations. People thrive on intrigue and tittle-tattle, and are fascinated by ‘secrets’ that simply hypnotise like the Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed and triggered by certain words.

When we stop being an automata,
we are in no-man’s-land
– which is outside the box and a good place to be –
to start our path to realise freedom.

Don’t Believe In Yourself

Don’t believe in yourself ; know it.

Know your self to be your private dictator, which condemns you to a fixed way of life.

Who or what is it that wants to be free? Consciousness wants to be liberated from those autocratic, domineering thoughts in the mind. When consciousness is free of contamination, it is pure.

Just look and see, and drop all notions, which are concepts or beliefs about something.

Freedom Of Thought

Freedom of thought is only possible when our mind is free of previous concepts. Conversations are repetitions of others’ thoughts, and thoughts are only words and images of something already perceived.

So how do we think in an original way?

We realise that thinking has its limitations, as we just go round in word circles. Thinking outside the box, however, is pure observation where no thought is necessary.

Pure observation is pure consciousness, pure awareness, which the thinking mind can never understand. When a red car goes by, we don’t have to think that is a red car … we already know it. That is being free of thought and judgement as the senses are non-conceptual.

When a person speaks, we automatically know whether to trust them or not, by the sound and gestures beyond the words. Are they looking into our eyes, or reading the script from their mind’s projections?

Freedom from thought is divine splendour – clarity.