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.

Relating And Not Relating

Relating to others can only be a generalisation
as we each have individual karmic attitudes.

Words are also a generalisation;
they’re not the real thing, as that has to be experienced individually.

The closer we come to reality, the nearer we are to the open door, but the less we can relate this opening to others. Why? Because they don’t see the same opening. Our true nature is nothing extraordinary: it’s not a common experience as it’s the simplicity that others cannot understand.

When people react to a subject, they’ve closed the door,
and communication cannot continue.

The door is only an opening with nothing supporting it,
ergo, there is no door
– we have been in the open all along.

The open door is pure consciousness.
The result of realisation is a mixture of joy and sadness.

Form And Formless

Stuck and unstuck.

Form is the material world of ideas, rituals, words and symbols.
Formless is what we are – pure consciousness.

Meditation is the form.
Non-meditation is formless.

Form is ‘religion’.
Formless is the fruition when we drop ‘religion’.

Stuck in the form is the vicious cycle of religious existence; the cult of worship.
Unstuck is realising we are that which we seek.

It matters not what others say; it matters how we see.
Enlightenment – the great unstuck-ness.

‘Good’ Trauma …?

Trauma is usually associated with unpleasant events or conditioning which leaves it mark throughout our life. They are ‘wounds’ we carry around – fear, anxiety, phobias – and this gives us the potential of being able to empathise with others’ suffering because we too have felt it.

‘Good’ trauma has the same effect of leaving its mark; good education, a nice upbringing and a good job, giving rise to pride and entitlement … and an inability to adapt to or empathise with the suffering of others. We can have a good start in life, mixing with the nice people and being been told what to do and how to do it, and so we fit in.

But can we deal with the unexpected? This is when we experience fear, anxiety and phobias about dealing with other people outside our spectrum.

Unpleasant trauma is suffering, and is the first cause on the path to enlightenment. 🙂 Never look down on others – even if they feel they are superior – as we all carry around our own burdens.

For those who are ‘happy’, we have compassion.
For those who are unhappy, we have empathy

The Invasion

Invasion: an intrusion into another’s domain.
That domain is the mind.

There are physical invasions, but before that comes the mental invasion – the preparation of the mind by agent provocateurs. In modern terms, this is referred to as ‘undercover operations’ to entice or incite others to go along with an idea without people noticing that their mind and attitude have been altered.

An indication of intruders is that we think this is all normal.

To expel these demons, we have to practise being aware by not reacting. The clarity of meditation dispels darkness. Once we know our true reality – the light of pure consciousness – this illumines all intruders, especially subtle emotions lying in ambush just under the surface, like agent provocateurs …

We need a smoke-and-mirrors alarm
to alert us to any proposal that, when examined closely,
proves to be an illusion.

The Problem With Insightful Statements

Throughout history, there have been many insightful statements – which make no difference to us. They are mainly filed at the back of our mind as clever and interesting, but they don’t change our attitude. This makes words meaningless, which they are until we investigate them personally to see if they are true or not.

Just because a guru says something doesn’t make it the truth. And it’s here that we have a problem. We may have good intentions, but these cloud reality when we jump in with both feet without realising that we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of wonderland. Believing is not the same as knowing.

Drop everything.
What is left?
Awareness.

What was it we dropped?
🙂

The Highest Form Of Ignorance

“Condemnation before investigation is the highest form of ignorance.”
Albert Einstein

If we condemn others before we know why they think the way they do, we are peddlers of ignorance.

The Buddha said, “Do not take my word for the truth; test it for yourself.”

How do we investigate? We watch the mind at work, and note the effect of likes and dislikes. That which notes has no likes and dislikes; it is just aware. This is pure consciousness. We are the investigator, which is realised as pure observation.

If we ignore this, we condemn ourselves to perpetual ignorance, the root of all evil.

“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
Plato

Before Awareness Is Emptiness

The ultimate teaching.

We open a book and, in the very, very first instant before being aware, before being aware that we are awareness, and before we start reading, emptiness is present. As a note for the uninitiated, the word ’emptiness’ is used as our pure state of being with nothing going on. Finding a better word than ’emptiness’ is difficult; the word shunyata is often used, but the meaning is still ‘an uncontaminated state’.

This emptiness is not something we can get hold of as it’s what we, in ultimate truth, are. Awareness or consciousness is our ordinary state; not knowing this is our deluded state. Shockingly, the ultimate teaching reveals that everything we think to be real is false, and this can be disturbing, to say the least.

“I am not deluded!” The first step to enlightenment is recognising that we are deluded, that we are easily aroused, and that we have become a product of mind, indoctrinated by the unenlightened collective.

Before we notice anything – even before being aware – emptiness is present. Emptiness is our original state. That emptiness is our uncontaminated being of no movement, before we start operating and referring to memories stored in the mind to relate to everything. That’s how relative reality comes about.

It is important to register this sequence.

One of the problems with using words is that what is meant may not come across. The words ‘pureawareness/consciousness’ can be perceived as one thing when, in reality, it is the unity of two extremes. These two extremes are emptiness forgetting awareness, and awareness forgetting emptiness. We either become over-excited and fixated (awareness) or spaced-out and, sorry to say, stupefied (emptiness).

Emptiness and awareness/consciousness
are a unity when realised.

When we become constant practitioners of meditation, this becomes clearer and clearer. It has to be experienced to be verified, and is definitely not an intellectual exercise of hear it, know it.

There is nothing new under the sun
except our change of view.

This may be disturbing because we think we know, but it will come. It takes conscious time, it takes practise. It’s like studying anything; if we do not have a foundation in a subject, things won’t click together quickly – but they will, with perseverance. 🙂

It’s not a learning process to become extra clever and adored;
it’s a process of personal uncovering.

Playing A Part

We all play a character that thinks it’s fixed.

Character: via Latin from Greek kharaktēr ‘a stamping tool’, a distinctive mark, a token, feature, or trait: a description, especially of a person’s distinguishing qualities.

This persona comes from adopting the social I created during our upbringing. It is a reflection of others’ responses to us, and we play that part – “Good boy, stupid boy”. This develops into a persona with distinguishing marks, whether proud, fearful, judgemental, gormless … :-). “Oh look, there’s gormless Tony!” to which I’d reply, “Oh, hello.”

We are none of the above, despite the fact that we assume that character. I did, being fearful and gormless – it’s a personal prison. Self identity is a personal prison, but when a group identifies with some idea, it becomes a collective prison as we all keep in group character on the stage, with ‘a usual pattern of behaviour and motives’.

‘Know thy self’
is to know the behaviour that we have fallen into.

We know in part but, when we know as the enlightened know,
pure consciousness is our completeness.

Thinking And Consciousness

Whatever and whenever we think, consciousness – pure consciousness – is already present. We merely have to recognise this, and realise the significance. It sounds so obvious when we say it, but it’s what we ignore in favour of our thoughts, our memories, not realising that it is these thoughts that wind us up.

This is the difference between dark and light, hell and heaven. Our thoughts are the problem as they are memories – the fixed script that is the dream-state to which we constantly refer. When we live in our dream-state, we cannot communicate as we just project memories at each other. This mind-state, or ego, is not a monster; it is our teacher.

As long we fall for interesting things, we will never awaken to what is actually taking place. In fact, we hardly need to think. When hitting a nail with a hammer, we don’t think about it; we are aware and naturally adjust. Writing this article is merely a matter of describing what is taking place.

We use the words ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’, but it’s all about consciousness that cannot be found as it’s what we are. The effect of words is just an add-on to that which is indescribable. When realised through meditation of just being aware, we suddenly acknowledge that there is only consciousness present, which is pure consciousness.

We cannot think about this, only realise it.

Staying Alive

Staying alive is staying open to all possibilities in the moment now. It’s not about carrying a load of information around, or being mindful; these are merely devices to remember to be aware.

Awareness itself needs no devices. Staying alive is experiencing the rawness of situations – pleasant and unpleasant – with no judgment in the first instant.

Going to where it’s peaceful and serene is an illusory fix that maintains an illusion. The real peace and serenity is pure consciousness. It’s what we are. Just pause and see.

When we dwell in our thoughts and ideas about those thoughts, we cause movement and agitation, and find no peace – just a dark fossilised place in our mind.

The moment of reality is … not knowing.
What?!

Exactly.
It’s empty cognisant space of what?!

Judging Others From Our State Of Mind

Our personal mind is limited to our perception – the way we see. Whatever we think we know, others will know much more. We judge from mind memories; this merely makes us predictable and reveals everything about us.

To judge whether something is right or wrong, we can use the words ‘beneficial’ or ‘harmful’ from from the point of view of pure consciousness. First, we assess our own mind before judging others. This has been said many times throughout history.

We can make observations,
but our judgement say more about us than whatever we are judging.

Knowing What’s Within Teaches Us What’s Without

A teacher is something or someone whose advice can dispel anxiety, alleviate worry and enlighten darkness, so giving confidence. A mind-wound or trauma from early life may still be present, but now it doesn’t take over our life. Healing starts from within when we realise causes and effects – things don’t just happen. Living with karma is living with the effects of our previous decisions and learning from them.

Teaching isn’t about being obliged to obey a set of rules or conform to the mould; it’s about personal experience and how life is for us now. We are not all the same at the same time. People are imprisoned by opinions that they’ve adopted from others’ opinions. In other words, we live our life guessing. 🙂

‘Dispel’ is an interesting word. We dispel darkness when we are no longer under the spell of the illusory mental fabrications which causes confusion; the outcome of that confusion is the blankness of not knowing. The Dharma (the teaching) dispels darkness through the light of wisdom that is already within. We all know but haven’t learnt to express it, and that’s why we feel uncomfortable.

Expressing what we know is challenging. This isn’t about repeating what others – even a teacher – say. It is realising the essence that connects it all, which results in originality.

Understanding the Dharma – and everything – is the same as understanding the escapement mechanism of a clock, which is the essence of all clocks; this is what connects and drives all the parts.

The essence of pure consciousness is clarity that expresses itself in compassionate effulgence. 🙂

Differing Views Cause Conflict

We may differ on what we see, but we can never differ on pure awareness. People can argue about this and that quite eloquently; humans are very good at making their views believable, but we cannot deny that which is pure observation, before words.

People who object to that have a limited understanding, and won’t be reading this anyway. 🙂

I used to be ‘Buddhist’, but now reflect on the understanding of the Buddha, who reflected on the Vedic understanding of the mirror and reflection of ‘not two’ = non-duality = the unity of opposites.

When someone tries to abuse or criticise us, consciousness brightens, and we feel alert. At that moment, we can either become upset and retaliate, creating duality and more karma, or we can realise that that brightness is pure consciousness, the unity of mirror and reflection – the maintenance of non-duality.

“Not a lot of people know that.”
🙂

Our Minds Have Changed Ownership

Our mind changes ownership when it believes something, and becomes an acquisition no longer able to tell the truth – mundane ‘political’ facts perhaps, but not truth.

We may think we own our mind, but why is it the way it is?
Our mind isn’t what we are.
We are the observation without an observer.
This is only realised in meditation practice.
Mind is a tool – a reactor – and, as such, a teacher.

If we want to know what’s going on in the world, we only need to look into our mind and see how it reacts to names, words and, strangely, music, which create the effect of earworms. Earworms are said to be associated with music, but it’s much more than just that; during the second world war, Goebbels was aware of the power of repetition.

An earworm – or brain-worm – is a catchy piece of music or a saying that occupies a person’s mind, triggering emotional flashbacks long after being played or spoken. Thoughts don’t just happen – pre-bunking (being primed) has already taken place.

Never take anyone’s word as truth;
test it for yourself.

Does the mind light up, or just accept?

Long-Term Subliminal Reactions

It’s amazing how many non-theistic people say,
“Jesus!” or “Oh my God!”
when something suddenly happens.

What gets in, stays in,
unless we are aware of it 🙂

‘I’ Is A Fiction, And A Misdirection

There is a trap in the English language which we all fall into that reinforces the idea of self. That word is ‘I’, which comes from the Latin word, ‘ego’. In consciousness-awareness terms, ‘I’ means a reinforcement of attachment to a constructed self. This trap creates egoism ie self-interest as the foundation of moral behaviour that we don’t notice in operation. As such, we become immoral because of self-interest, hence the misdirection; the hallmark of this is the arising of emotions.

It’s not easy to shake off! 🙂

Sometimes, we may use the word ‘I’ in a friendly manner, as in “I hear what you are saying”, which sounds better than “There is acknowledgement of your words.” 🙂

Just being aware of the use of the word ‘I’ can help us navigate communication in order to stay objective. First, we notice how much the word ‘I’ is used in everyday conversations to reinforce opinions rather than facts, thus arousing emotions. When we use the word ‘I’, we prop up subjectivity. It’s a mental trap.

On an intellectual level, the word ‘I’ is described as that which is aware, but this actually downgrades or obliterates consciousness, as we vaguely assume that consciousness is something ‘I’ use, but never question what ‘I’ is.

Confused?
I am always confused.
“May confusion dawn as wisdom.”
– Gampopa.

In pure consciousness
– which is spontaneous presence –
there is no time for an dualistic ‘I’.

Try not using the word ‘I’ for a day … Kathie and the person who wrote this article did, and it’s very funny 😀

What If Enlightenment Is Not As It Is Portrayed?

Humans are extremely clever, and extremely stupid; both states are distractions.
What if enlightenment is merely understanding, experiencing and realising the fundamental reality of our natural being, of just being aware for a moment or continuously.

We have heard all the wondrous stories from the past, but do they happen now, in front of our eyes?
Has there been a wondrous Buddha in the past 500 years? What if the enlightened are quite straightforward and natural, and the rest of us are so stupid in our cleverness, when we merely have to transcend confusion by not believing anything.

The point is that we may meditate and think that it’s leading somewhere better, when it’s just a matter of dropping the act, with its repetitive script.

But what about religions?
Humans are extremely clever about making something out of no-thing = empty cognisance.

This simple understanding takes the pressure off,
by us not being taken in by appearances.

We Don’t Want To Be Taken In

All beings are perfect in essence but, through ignorance of this reality, we became embodied in a form, being taken in by the measure of our uncontrolled fixations and emotions. We can see ourselves walking, talking, squawking in this atmosphere, and think it’s us.

There is nothing mysterious or fanciful about our true reality; it’s quite simple. There’s no need for long term mantras and chants in a special language. There’s no need for special clothing that separates us from others, and there is no need to be in conflict with anyone.

In reality, we don’t belong to dualistic belief systems; we are free beings, but we’re wrapped in karmic clutter of self-cleverness. The result of clinging to the collective historical clutter is a mountain of utter clutter 😀

When the term ‘emptiness’ is used, it refers to uncontaminated knowingness of awareness. That is the clarity we are, right here, right now. It has no name, ergo we have no name.

We are not unique as we are all enlightened nature, but we just don’t accept this. Why? Because of our adherence to a history and culture created by an ignorant world, full of pride and entitlement. This evil intent – selfishness – causes division through a sense of self-importance.

Spirituality and evil are closely linked. How? Those who don’t care have already been taken in. 🙂 People who turn to religion are at a turning point, but can easily be convinced that appearances are more important than essence … taken!

After realising the truth of our being, it’s challenging to see that practically all beings on this planet think they are someone, with a name, family and job – and that’s it.

It is this very understanding that keeps us from being taken in as well. 🙂