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.

Our Precious Teacher Is Our Reactions

Do they enlighten us (brighten us up)
or maintain fixations (lower the light)?

😀

“You Can Lead A Horse To Water …”

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”.

Showing people the way to find something or to do something,
doesn’t mean they will act upon it.

This year could be a better year.
Transmissions need receivers.
😀

What If Reptilians Rule The Earth?

What if reptilians rule the earth?
Has it affected our ability to traverse the path to enlightenment? No.
Do vajras and bells affect our ability to traverse the path to enlightenment? No.

Ideas manipulate our minds, but we can still practise by not filling our minds with speculation and beliefs. We are free by neither accepting nor rejecting; that is for believers.

When we are governed by fight, flight or freeze, we are governed by reptilian brain = desire, aversion and ignorance.

Fortunately, these same imprisoning aspects of mind are also wisdoms = emptiness, consciousness and compassion.

So it is reptilian brain that rules us,
but these imprisoning aspects can be transformed into enlightenment.

This why ‘evil’ can control most of the people most of the time,
but not all of the people all of the time.

Have a powerful and spiritually enthusiastic
New Year.
🙂

Appreciating Clarity

Clarity is divine splendour = pure awareness.

In looking for divine splendour, we obscure it,
by misunderstanding clarity.

We don’t appreciate this because we exaggerate.

Imagine you have been denied sight for a very long time.
Suddenly, you can see.
That moment of relief of just seeing is glorious.

Inner light of pure consciousness has been obscured by thoughts.
Realising this inner light, every moment is splendid.

No exaggeration needed.

Spontaneity Is Ultimate Reality

Spontaneity is the timeless moment of ultimate reality before we start recognising, judging and reacting, and where there are no expectations, just the presence of consciousness. This is wisdom, before we make a fool of ourselves with opinions, however valid those may be.

Spontaneity is pure being.
We can’t get much more wholesome (holy) than that.

Being spontaneous means we adapt to changes without feeling stressed or anxious – a “go with the flow” attitude, where we become less fixed and more flexible in all areas of life.

Why Do We Find Communication So Difficult?

Communication … “Ay, there’s the rub!” – the friction.

It is because we lack confidence in our true reality that we hibernate in a mind of dreams/memories, waiting for the awakening. We are what is called ‘consciousness’. The truth is that consciousness is always awake, but clings to ideas that isolate us. It is because of this feeling of isolation that we feel vulnerable and so we protect ourselves by avoiding communicating in a meaningful way.

We start our path – the ‘awakening’ – when we admit that we feel uncomfortable, and are suffering. I feel uncomfortable because I was always being told off, so a lack of confidence has travelled with me throughout life … until I realised that everyone else was covering up their insecurities too. That’s how empathy and confidence start.

Instead of rubbing one another up the wrong way,
we should be rubbing shoulders
– talking with someone in a meaningful way.

True communication is a transmission of consciousness;
it’s the moment when we brighten up.

Self: A Work Of Fiction

In our mind, we build up a picture of our self. This picture is usually created by a social I, a reflection of others’ responses to us – “Good boy” “Bad boy” etc. 🙂 We are only ‘good’ if we do and say what others want us to do and say to fit in with their self picture. It’s possible to fall out with others pretty quickly if we don’t go along with their views.

We (consciousness) can, however, work quite happily with this fictitious self – this obstinate programming – because it teaches us where we go wrong immediately through a feeling of being uncomfortable.

We needn’t feel guilty about this as it’s happening to everyone, including the ‘good boys’. Some people seem to have a charmed life, but look closely – it’s high maintenance.

The essence of mind is pure consciousness.
The content of mind is pure fiction.

= Heaven and Hell.
🙂

What Created Consciousness?

Some say that God created consciousness.
Some say that it comes from millions of years of evolution.
Some say consciousness just is.

The important point is that we all know we are here now. We are agreed on that?

Do you realise what you have just agreed to?
We all know.
It just is. It never changes. It’s what we are.
We aren’t different in that knowingness.

Consciousness must not be confused with thoughts, as thoughts are impermanent and changeable. Some say that consciousness enters the body at conception, commensurate with its measure of motivation.

We are universal beings with short memories, but there is an ‘atmosphere’ about us; this is clear in everyone we meet – there’s a stuffed atmosphere. 🙂

Consciousness is beyond religion and science.
This becomes clear in meditation
the moment when we drop the meditation
and realise that pure consciousness is perfect contentment.

If we don’t truly appreciate this, we will continue to argue.

Walking In Others’ Shoes

Let’s say you dislike a group of people and their way of life intensely. They, in turn, dislike you and your way of life. This situation is due to our ideas about others’ religion, culture, politics … and each side believes it’s right.

What if our mind is filled with so much dislike that, due to karma, we were then born into the very group we disliked. Wouldn’t we then be disliking the people we used to be? 🙂

Dislike is the karma we carry with us. Liking too much is also karma, which could be why we’re so easily addicted to certain things or ideas.

We live on a precarious tightrope when we ignore this, and continue in a vicious cycle of samsaric existence of me, my likes and my dislikes, all because of a self-identity that forgot it is pure consciousness.

When we identify with and obsess about others’ ideas,
we walk in others’ shoes.

Our true reality is pure consciousness,
sans likes, sans dislikes, sans everything.

We Are More Than Just Recording Machines

A recording is a repetition which is acceptance without verification.
We are more than just recording machines;
we have intuition.

Intuition: the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning, denoting spiritual insight.

We are intuition itself,
because insight is pure consciousness, which is intrinsic wisdom.

We Don’t Have To Be A Prophet To Be Prophetic

There is nothing new under any sun.

Here’s one prophecy:
Governed by their likes and dislikes, people will ignore their true reality.

Here’s another:
If we become reliant, we will adopt others’ ways of thinking.

And another:
Hell is the thoughts in our mind. Heaven is the clarity of mind.

Being a prophet is just using common sense, rather than being a good story teller. Nobody walks on water and nobody flies in the sky, but people prefer belief, rather than relying on simple reasoning.
In fact, the simpler the reasoning, the less they understand because of belief in ‘miracles’.

We go to ‘holy’ places to seek realisation, when the wholeness we are searching for is our true essence of pure consciousness, which is here, now.

If we’re looking for miracles,
we will be given with a string of stories.

When we lose our reality in the mud of concepts,
it will be found in meditation

Nitpick Yourself

Instead of finding fault with others,
first seek out your own faults.
“Seek and you shall find.”

Having identified our faults,
we can empathise with how others got theirs.
Every emotion that they’ve ever felt, we have also.

It’s not fair to nitpick others when we don’t nitpick our self.
When we have nitpicked our self,
no one can nitpick us as we’ve already done it,
and there is nothing left to defend.

Once you get a glimpse of the Great Perfection – Dzogchen –
try the Great Nitpick.

😀

Pure Awareness Can Never Be Wrong

Ideas and beliefs can be wrong,
but pure awareness is never wrong.

It is this that people cannot understand.
Prove pure awareness wrong …