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.

What Woke Me Up?

The pretence of goodness.

After following gurus, lamas and students for decades, I realised that there wasn’t much – if any – compassion around. No real lasting connection, but just competitive ‘goodness’. Everyone is caught up in the exotic, without any esoteric realisation of wisdom, the full understanding of being.

Decades of chanting ‘compassion’
while all around showed a lack of compassion seemed fishy.

We’re so easily charmed into worshipping that we ignore the essence of reality within all sentient beings; we may revere names, academic theories or religious rituals, but still have no actual empathy.

When we genuinely wake up,
that is the birth of compassion
No defensiveness present.
No pretence. No confusion.
Just a genuine connection.

We learn to bow and scrape – behaving in an obsequious way to someone in authority. This isn’t waking up. The Buddha wanted us to know directly through experience, rather than becoming reliant on others.

A Buddha cannot wake us up; we need a shock which is precisely measured to each individual’s confusion.

There isn’t one word / pill to suit all.

The Dharma Is A Generalisation

The Dharma is a generalisation.
Realisation of the Dharma is personal.

Neither life nor the Dharma are about learning facts;
that is a sleepy view.
Personal experience is alive, awake and constantly refreshing.

If anyone tells you about the Dharma and you accept it as truth,
you will be living their dream.

Because everyone else is doing it,
make sure you know what the it is that they’re doing.

Know the difference between an act and reality
as it can be confusing.

Waking Up To Foolishness

We only wake up when we realise how foolish we’ve been to believe what others say. Realising our ultimate truth isn’t easy, either in the secular or non-secular world. The secular world is only interested in material words for gain. The non-secular world is dominated by religious words for gain.

Words are a biased filter in the mind; actual experience is seeing directly through the eyes, rather than seeing through the ideologies. Well-educated or well-indoctrinated are the same things – being unable to see clearly.

We acquire ideas and then project them as our own, colouring everything that we see. So, we see through a glass darkly. Even if our words are very clever, it’s still second-hand programming, and we get angry and defensive when others don’t believe us. This is so ridiculous, as we now think of disbelievers as an enemy.

When we wake up, we walk alone,
and we are no longer dependent.

Waking up is not complicated; it is just seeing, pure awareness, pure consciousness without any fixed ideas.

In other words, just seeing without attitude,
being neither clever nor special.

Seeing clearly is the clarity of divine splendour.
It is that magnificent.

Splendour: late Middle English, from Latin splendere – ‘shine, be bright’.

The Light That Eliminates Darkness

It’s possible that, while meditating, we fall into a state of vacancy where there is no thought, but no wisdom of knowingness of our true essence of pure consciousness either. If there is no wisdom, there is no compassion. We may feel good, such as when we go into a temple, but there’s nothing lasting as there is a reliance on a feeling that is a ‘right’ place to go to.

Merely become aware of this situation, without mental comment, realising that there is nothing else. That is ever-present pure consciousness; that is the ‘right place’, our original place.

We are so used to doing something to feel good – praying, chanting, prostrating – that we can fall into the other extreme of nothingness, which can turn into feeling of pointlessness.

The middle way is neutral awareness – not too tight and not too loose, neither accepting nor rejecting.

We each have to decide what is real.

What Alternative Facts Would Wake You Up?

We all know the facts of life: we’re born, educated, work, breed, eat, play games, holiday, worry, die.

What if there is a caste of people unknown to the public who saw themselves as a group that inherits exclusive privileges, or who are perceived as socially distinct by degrees of ritual purity?

Caste: mid 16th century from Spanish and Portuguese casta: lineage, race, breed. Feminine
of casto: ‘pure, unmixed’, from Latin castus ‘chaste’.

How do they see humanity?

‘As Above, So Below’ Is The Great Illusion

‘As above, so below’ is a common chant among the proletariat, but this is the great illusion.

We may think there is a higher self – something above – because it’s portrayed in all religions and philosophies that way. This has kept us wanting, seeking and hoping … bound in the dark dungeon of existence.

Ultimate reality is at eye level.
Realisation is at eye level.
Enlightenment is at eye level.

Direct perception, pure awareness, pure consciousness
is right here, right now.

Our perception is misdirected,
kept below eye level in the mud of confusion.

Why do you think that is?

Proletariat: mid 17th century from Latin proletarius, from proles ‘offspring’, denoting a person having no wealth in property who only serves the state by producing offspring. 

That is to say, slaves … captive and captivated.

Dharma Draughtsman Or Doodler?

Draughtsman: creating precise and accurate drawings, adjusting and revising based on feedback or changes, and ensuring the consistency and accuracy of technical drawings and documentation.

Doodle: to draw or scribble idly, to waste time in aimless or foolish activity. ‘Doodle’ first appeared in the 17th century to mean a fool or simpleton, perhaps from the German ‘dudeltopf’ or ‘dudeldop’, meaning simpleton. It’s the origin of the early eighteenth-century verb ‘to doodle’, meaning to swindle or to make a fool of.

To authenticate anything, it is we who have to decide if something is accurate or not. Therefore, it is we who give the authority to someone, rather than accepting others’ say-so.

This bring us back to the different traditions and levels of understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, where we have to know at what level someone is speaking.

Sometimes, a Dzogchen teacher may refer to a psychological state of mind that comes from a Theravadan tradition, because the students are becoming too cerebral.

A well-draughted teaching may hit the spot,
but a doodle of confusion may also hit the spot.

In crazy wisdom, only you can know.

Finding Our Dharma Feet

Standing on our own two feet is being confident and independent, without help from other people; we can then play our part in Dharma activity. It’s not going to save the world, but it will have a knock-on effect.

It is the subliminal message within all teachings … confidence.

Meditation Isn’t Sitting On A Special Cushion

Meditation isn’t sitting on a special cushion, in a special place, at a special time. Meditation is timeless, placeless, cushionless awareness.

We can pause, just being anywhere at any time, in any place. It’s called relaxing, without sleepiness or drifting into thought.

Just pausing now and again cuts through habitual routines. Even meditation can become a routine, so we drop that as well.

The road of enlightenment isn’t a mechanical process.
We test each step, like a cat.

Never Underestimate Human Stupidity

Humans are governed by their emotions – like, dislike, pride and jealousy – and by not knowing what their essence is.

Never underestimate the human ability to transcend stupidity.

It’s stupid to think that ordinary humans cannot transcend stupidity. This is where those who think they’re superior to humanity go wrong.

Humans can be aware that they are governed by their emotions of like, dislike, pride and jealousy, and they can know their essence.

There are always two sides to every occurrence, but these are also a unity, in that you can’t have one without the other. Dark is only known by virtue of the presence of light.

We are so much more than stupid.
🙂

Becoming A Fanatic

Fanatic: from Latin ‘fanaticus’ – inspired by a god or demon.
Fanatics fantasise – they imagine.

In all walks of life, people are becoming fanatics. Everything is zero-tolerance; things are exaggerated and embellished, and the stimulated and reactive audience cheers louder. Being hyped-up and too excited, we are unable to rest or find calmness.

The term ‘hype’ comes from ‘hyperbole’, which combines one Greek term for ‘over’ and another that means ‘cast’ or ‘throw’. So hyperbole describes the sense of over-reaching, or grasping beyond what is necessary in order to describe a certain feeling, experience or response.

Fanatics become bound to an imaginary idea which was created by ‘influencers’ who, in turn, create levels of other influencers who suggest what we eat, buy, value, pray to, become attached to … thus breeding more fanatics.

How do we not become fanatics?

Know that fanatics are addicts.
Once we can admit this, our therapy begins,
one day at a time. 🙂

Being Obsessed

Obsession is anything that possesses the mind. We can be obsessed about big things or little things. It’s all about personal gain, while lacking empathy for others, and being possessed is the basis of evil (referring to an evil spirit).

Obsession is the opposite to reality: from the Latin obsidere, from ob- ‘opposite’ + sedere ‘sit’.

In all walks of life, people become obsessed by an idea that drives them, which usually about ‘me’ and ‘mine’. There are certain influential people in the world who are extremely – and religiously – obsessed, and they may even worship a different Godhead to everyone else – the God of gain.

In Buddhism, there are many levels of understanding the same words, so people see in different ways and act accordingly, either for personal gain or to realise wisdom.

It is important to know what we are dealing with – not a person, but an idea. We can think we are worshipping good when, in fact, we’re worshipping evil, whether we know it or not.

How many people realise that they are possessed?
The very moment of recognising obsession is freedom.

All we have to do is dare to look.