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.

Catch It While You Can

We may say, “There is no God”, but we’ve been brought up in a system that promotes the idea of God.

Let’s say we’re Buddhist; when something suddenly happens, we might automatically exclaim,“My God!” or “God! What was that?” That is old brain at work, and we didn’t notice it.
We never say, “My Buddha!” 🙂

Old brain has been indoctrinated, and affects our current mind.
Catch it while you can!

TRUTH IS ON A NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS

Truth Is On A Need-To-Know Basis

Those who don’t need to know think they already know.
For those who need to know, the door will open.

Irrelevant Communication Wastes Life

As humans, we have the ability to talk and communicate at the highest level.
So, what do we talk about?

Our speech is a manifestation of our mind,
and our mind is a manifestation of our interests,
while our interests are a manifestation of old brain.
And so we are reduced to being recording machines swapping histories.

Communication should be about being homo sapiens = wise beings,
but we become fluent in flaunting our foolishness.

Simple speech, pure speech, is always about now.

The Not-So-Invisibility Cloak

This cloak is the idea of self which we project to others – who are doing the very same thing. It has no reality, but we believe that others can’t see our disguise. Pure consciousness is x-ray vision, while we ignore this in favour of a mutually accepted social contract of behaviour.

When we’re young, we are taught to believe the dream, and ignore that we have a true reality. We play and act in others’ dreams. Just take watching a sport; first, we just see it, but then we watch others over-react and do the same. Instead of silent appreciation, we make gross noises.

That is the disguise we all wear, be it politics, entertainment, science, religion … we jump on the bandwagon of illusions, never admitting that we aren’t actually interested in the hoopla, and all the unnecessary fuss because we know that such an admission would upset those around us.

It’s all smoke and mirrors*; when examined closely, it proves to be an illusion.

This is our life.
But there is so much more.

*Smoke and mirrors is a metaphor, originating from 18th and 19th-century phantasmagoria shows, and describes deceptive, fraudulent or insubstantial explanations.

Emptiness – Between This And That

We spend our entire lives comparing ‘this’ to ‘that’ – judging, evaluating, reasoning – trying to achieve satisfaction. We never notice the gap in between, of just seeing before we leap.

Shunyata or emptiness
is our undisturbed, natural, neutral state,
where we couldn’t be happier.
🙂

What’s Emptiness All About?

Emptiness is what it’s all about.

It’s all about the magic, the magi, the art of wisdom to influence events by realising the emptiness of illusions, and understanding the tricks the mind plays on consciousness.

We have to be very careful that we don’t fall into nihilism, where everything seems pointless. Likewise, we don’t want to create something to adhere to and make special. Both these sets of ideas fix us in a state. We need our mind to quieten down to understand pure reality, which is not a set of ideas: it is unchanging consciousness that recognises these ideas.

The one thing that we forget or ignore is consciousness, because we’re so busy being filled with phenomena, deeming it pleasant or unpleasant. Consciousness just notes, is always present and is full of potential but, at the same time, it is empty of contaminating concepts. It is purely aware. That is what is termed ’empty cognisance’. The emptiness of consciousness does not create anything; it sees the nature of creation as being emptiness itself – subtle matter changing form, due to causes and conditions, within the emptiness of space.

We’re so busy and involved in looking at things and interpreting them that we become indifferent to the empty, cognisant essence that is seeing. That is our constant reality – and our constant confusion.

Whatever we see has no permanent reality;
everything comes to pass.

That which sees
– that which is purely aware –
is emptiness of consciousness.

The moment now is also empty;
it is the pure light/clarity of spontaneous presence.
The sheer joy of being.

The challenge is to not become bound by enjoying. 🙂
We are all work-in-progress.