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.

Realisation Shrinks The Need For Many Words

Examples:
Not two.
The unity of appearance and recognition.
Pure consciousness.

These each contain the complete Dharma.

Beginners like collecting words,
but the truth is never in words.

The Beginners And The Advanced

Beginners adore complexity.
The advanced realise simplicity.

Beginners collect words and names.
The advanced see everything as one taste.

Why Do We Cut Ourselves Off From Others?

Why do we resist reaching out?

‘Reaching out’ means to initiate contact to offer help, seek connection, or communicate.

When we join a group, become a type, hold a belief, we adhere to group values and regard ourselves as moral and virtuous. This self-value colours our view of others whom we regard as different.

Even when there is a similar understanding, we still keep one another at arm’s length. Why? We are holding on to something. We aren’t recognising that this attitude is our personal obstacle on the path to enlightenment. It’s our challenge, and we don’t like being challenged.

We may become sentimental over words and images, but when it comes to personal interaction, we freeze.

Letting go is extremely subtle.
Anything that provokes ego’s reaction is our teacher.

Making A Culture and Replacing a Culture

Culture: the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

A culture is created by a certain type of temperament which is the code for that society. Some are noisy, others are quiet. A problem occurs when the noisy enter the quiet and upset the balance, demanding that everyone becomes noisy.

Technology changes how we live. Some changes are natural, while others are orchestrated. It’s not actually change; we are constantly being diverted away from our natural state.

Once we recognise the pattern, we’re not surprised – it’s predictable. We see all the lies and false information about reality, and begin to re-examine where we got our values from.

If you were born into a different family or culture who used words in a particular way, would you be the same person? No, you wouldn’t – but the essence of pure consciousness would be the same.

The noise in our head goes round and round – that’s our culture.

Observation Versus Observer

One is absolute reality; the other is relative reality.

When there is just observation, at that infinitesimal moment, there is no I, no self, no observer present. There is just pure observation. No relating is happening.

This is an important distinction to observe before consciousness starts claiming … “I see.”

The moment when there is a feeling of an observer, a relationship is set up, and an infinitesimal moment of time is taken up. This is also an important distinction to observe.

We have become so used to claiming that this colours everything that is perceived – “I see.” We are not the voice in our head; that is just an echo from our environment.

The real you is the silent observation that has no voice, no ideas.
Shocked?
🙂

Life Is A Conveyor Belt Of Industrial Intellectualisation

We can only laugh at ourselves when we actually get off. 🙂
Most of us die without knowing the journey we’ve been on.

We play the game of oneupmanship,
all the while scooting along the conveyor belt of re-education.

The know-it-alls never notice that pure consciousness knows nothing.

This is the ‘spiritual’ psychological trap
of learning words without knowing them.

We become hollow sounding-boards of belief.
This is the entrapment of predicability.

When we get off the conveyor belt of industrial intellectualisation,
we are free to … 🙂

Why Write A Blog

Not everyone wants to consider the truth of their being. People either belong to an idea, or speculate, or aren’t bothered – and realising the truth takes a lot of practice and testing.

Absolute truth is available to everyone as it’s their essence, which is pure consciousness. Having realised the truth, finding the right words to hit the right target is a challenge as the truth is never in the words.

No one can find fault with pure consciousness, and very few appreciate its significance, and what obscures it. When truth is realised, each individual emphasises what seems to be most important. 

Karma/self/emotions/belief/ideas are all the same; they are our teacher.
They show us what we are subtly holding on to that obscures pure vision.

In pure vision, there is no I, karma, self, emotions, belief, ideas, obscurations.
n this way, life is never boring.

This blog is coming up to the start of its thirteenth year.
🙂

People Are Out Of Control

When we over-react through emotions, we are out of control.
Emotions are created by our mood and our relationship with others.

Pride is a juicy emotion,
and there are influencers who feed off our pride.
This is how evil collects its companions.

The only defence is the sanctity of the inner stillness of pure consciousness.

There Is A Flaw In Me

Thinking “It’s all about me” is the imperfection.

The flaw is claiming to be a self
which is merely a ghost in the mind.

This me doesn’t actually exist.

Once we realise the flaw, the me drops away
and become flawless consciousness.
The universe is complete in opposites.

This is how realisation works;
you don’t have to be perfect to be perfect.

Never Wake A Sleeping Person

I was told years ago never to wake a sleeping person,
and I’ve wondered about this ever since.

If we talk to a sleeping person,
the response will either be blankness or hostility.

Sleeping people live in vacant or absorbed states
where no communication is possible.

Not Playing With A Full Deck Of Cards

‘Not playing with a full deck of cards’ means that we are not thinking clearly. We use words in a limited way, repeating them day after day like a mantra, which restricts experience.

A full deck of cards is the wholeness of clarity. Until we realise our true reality of pure consciousness, we are merely guessing which cards are missing.

Pottering And Chattering Classes

Potter: occupy oneself in a desultory but pleasant way.

Desultory: lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm: going from one subject to another in a half-hearted way.

Chatter: talk informally about unimportant matters. Also electronic or radio communication, especially between individuals being monitored by a government agency as a result of suspected involvement in terrorist activity.

How did we get this way?
Through fear, we self-censor, to show how well our programming is going.

In Pure Consciousness, Everyone Is Equal

In the eyes of pure consciousness, everyone is equal, meaning that we all have the potential for enlightenment, which is the clarity of being, our original state. As such, we are nothing special.

When consciousness becomes a mind-construct acquired from a book, we might think we’re superior because it says so in the book.

We can spend our life reading the same books, studying the same words over and over again, but never realising their true meaning. Are we reading someone’s translation? A fiction? And is there something left out? How would we know?

It’s far simpler to experience pure consciousness
than to read about it.

Pure consciousness is reading these words without comment.
The words aren’t important; that which reads is our reality.

Our assumptions about the words aren’t important
as they divide us.
That which purely perceives is the ultimate truth
within everyone.

Clearing All Doubt

We want to know about everything.
This addiction never satisfies, and life feels meaningless.

Our desire to know obscures that which already knows – that which is asking the questions. That is the ultimate answer. It doesn’t matter whatever is going on ‘over there’, it’s the effect it’s having here that matters.

“But there is so much hatred over there!” There are always influences in the world that only want to destroy, and to cause a reaction. Be clear about that.

The absolute answer to clarity is pure consciousness – our true being.
Everything else is a perpetual impermanence.

We don’t have to join or belong to anything to realise this.
Merely remain in perpetual pure awareness.

Whatever happens will happen, according to causes – individual and collective.

Do Dharma Practitioners Experience Anger?

Do Dharma practitioners experience anger?
Yes, of course.
Seeing all the injustice and subterfuge in the world, who wouldn’t?

The very moment when anger arises, however, is the moment the mind brightens, and the wisdom of pure perception is present. We don’t react, but we remain alert to Mara’s games.

Mara uses our reactions to ensnare us. This is where a practitioner rests in silent awareness, only reacting if balance can be restored.

The recognition of Mara’s games is the cause for enlightenment, and then Mara goes and plays someone else.

As long as there are sentient beings, there is Mara … and Enlightenment.
The universe is complete in opposites.

How Would You Subjugate The World?

How would you subjugate the world?

What would you do to make everyone obey you
– or even disobey you, in order to obey you by creating conflict?

Build confusion.

Now look at the world.
What do you see?
Confusion has been being built for thousands of years.

Evil doesn’t care how long it takes.
Dharma only takes a moment to be free.

Caught In A Paradigm Of Belief

Once a belief is established in the mind, this infiltrates all experience. If we fight against belief, it’s therefore still governing us. It’s a conundrum that colours the language and jargon we use when we trot out the same old cliches.

Silent awareness is beyond the patterns of world views which promote division and chaos. All our pet theories are merely beliefs we’ve acquired from others.

There is nothing new under any sun.
All the while, consciousness looks on from outside the paradigm.