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.

Two Views Of Mysticism 

Mysticism:
Knowledge which is inaccessible to the intellect, and attained through contemplation and self-surrender.
Or.
A vague and ill-defined religious or spiritual belief.

When we eliminate self, we gain free access insight.

Getting Over Religion

Getting over religion is getting out of religious fervour,
and realising what life is all about.

Religion can be either a preparation or a prison. We first have to be in it to know it. It’s no good just criticising religion from the outside because of the way people look or sound. Religion is suitable for a certain type of person. The word ‘religion’ means to bind, but there comes a time when we have to stand on our own feet. Even the Buddha would agree with that.

There’s no talking to religious people because they’re fixed in their religions ideas, and equally, there’s no point in talking to naysayers as they also have their fixed ideas. Both claim to be factual, but they’re both extremes.

The truth of reality is in the seeing.
Anyone can do this, and they don’t have to be religious.

Reality isn’t about how we see through mental bias and fixations. Our reality is the pure seeing that has no need for words or commentaries. Once we are able to see, perceive, just be aware, anything else is a distraction. When we focus on the work in hand, pure consciousness is present.

Spiritual discovery isn’t about how high we can go;
it is a matter of clearing away the pile of mental junk
covering up pure consciousness that is here, now.

The clearer we see,
the lighter we feel.

🙂

Words Are Blunt Tools

The senses cannot be described; they are just experienced. The warmth of the sun, the chirping of birds, the smell of grass, the taste of our spit, the play of air on our skin … all are indescribable.

They are pure experience. There is no need for names.
That which is aware of this pure experience is also indescribable.

Words do not cut the mustard to express indescribable experience.

(When mustard plants were cut by hand with scythes, this required an extremely sharp tool; when these implements were blunt, they would not “cut the mustard”).

Words are a blunt tool.

We Are Errant Beings

We are errant beings, straying from the path.
“What path?”

We all follow a path of some sort – a path of dreams, nightmares or awakening. Even a path of awakening can become a path of dreams and nightmares. 🙂

We stray because we fall in love with the scent of the flowers, the warm breeze, and the exotic names of the insects; this is sentimentality.

Our personal path is our confusion about our reality, and the emotions thus created – it’s not about echoing others’ confusion. Realising the path, the path now comes to us in the form of karma, the results of previous actions which we now work with to eliminate our errant ways.

Instead of errant beings, we become errand beings
– carriers of messages, with the joy of trying to explain something important.

😀

The Audience Is The Show

Entertainment isn’t about the production of a clever story with charismatic actors; it’s about capturing the mind of an audience. The producers watch the effect, for further productions or sequels. 🙂

As long as we are watching the show – be it political, religious, sporty, scientific, comical – we lose ourselves, and are unaware that we are even conscious as we oscillate between vacancy and occupancy.

This is how humanity is controlled, as we are encouraged to identify with a story. All media is about having an audience to spread ‘information’ – even this blog – but we have to actually be aware of what’s going on before we can deal with it and be prepared. If we see nothing to deal with, we’re merely acting out our part.

This world is all about entertainment, distracting the mind at all levels – low brow, high brow … makes no difference, as we all identify with something.

When someone gets tricked, cheated or deceived, we say that they ‘have been had’, meaning they’ve been mistreated or dealt with badly. It’s about having power over others by keeping them at a disadvantage.

If we don’t know we’re being had, we will continue paying for it.
When we know, we are free.

Holding On To The Past

Holding on to the past inhibits experiencing the present.

As long as we identify with the past, we deny the present, and so we continue to behave and think in the same old way. Holding on to any idea detracts and belittles the exact moment now. We can refer to the past, but just as a general reminder as it is only a blunt tool.

Holding on to the past is not enlightening; we may have a wick but no illumination, which is a brightening up of the mind! To deal with the present, we need to be adaptable and accept what present karma brings our way.

Unfortunately, religion dwells on the past; it is supposed to be the light, but all it can do is supply the candles. The light is within all sentient beings, and can only be exposed … now!

What Are You Doing To Your Mind?

Or rather, what is your mind doing to you?
We need to be precise about this.

O

The essence of mind is the emptiness of pure consciousness; this clarity of direct seeing is what we are, but we fill this pure space with fixated ideas which distract and obscure pure vision. Pure vision isn’t something extra extra extraordinary; it’s merely seeing, without the usual commentaries and judgements. Realisation is just that.

Our mind has become our karma, as each moment of reaction compounds the illusion, creating both our behaviour, and the imitation self that deluded consciousness identifies with. We are not the ideas in the mind, precisely because we can see thoughts operating. We are consciousness, pure and simple – we don’t have consciousness. If we had consciousness, what would we be then?

It is ideas that separates us.

Our mind stores memories, which can be useful for expressing how things are if we see straight. But if these memories take over, we become a repeating machine, and that is precisely how most of us spend our lives. Is that living?

When we say the world is crazy, it really is …
but that craziness can be enlightening.

What if God is just the three laws of the universe? 

What if God is the principle of the infinite universe, and not a being?

God can be understood – or misunderstood – in many ways, either to abuse mankind or to enlighten it. The three laws or formulae or principles of the universe are attraction, repulsion and inertia; these laws control both planets and the behaviour of all sentient beings through desire, aversion and indifference.

These gross laws are what drive us to do insane things such as abuse, creating fear, and stunning people into silence. This is exoteric understanding.

But these laws have inner, esoteric knowledge of emptiness, cognisance and compassion. This is our pure state, but we fall from grace when we forget or ignore our true reality. Emptiness – our uncontaminated origin – is contaminated when we desire. Because we desire, we become judgemental, and when we become judgemental, we lack empathetic compassion.

We all have a choice of what sort of God to follow.