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.

What If Reincarnation Is A Reality?

If reincarnation is a reality,
does that change our attitude?

In an infinite universe, there is an infinite number of beings in an infinite number of places suitable for life to exist. We cannot assume that we will reincarnate on Earth, and therefore beings from other places can reincarnate here. This could be the reason why we’re born with certain tendencies, which are totally different from others. Some people are very aggressive while others show inclinations of wisdom. It may also account for some feeling that they are in the wrong body, the wrong gender.

We may not reincarnate with two legs; four-legged creatures who’ve had close contact with kind two-legged creatures may reincarnate having two legs. We could be surrounded by beings looking for a home, looking for kindness, goodness and stability.

We can all make mistakes. Wherever we land up, we have to deal with life as it is now, created by karma – our past tendencies.

Life is a rehearsal – from Old French: a repeating, from rehercier, ‘to go over again’.

As we ascend the levels of realisation, we play new parts.

No change, no ascension.
Know change, know ascension.

What The Media Never Talks About

The media – or rather, what’s behind the media – will never talk about that which we have in common: pure consciousness.

Once we realise we are pure consciousness, then we know what isn’t pure.

Pure means uncontaminated.

Words Are Parasites

Parasites rule.

Parasite: an organism that lives in or on another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense.

Parasites need a host. They consume the resources of the host and alter that host’s behaviour for their own survival, replicating into a new host.

Words are like brand awareness, in that they get into our brain and hijack it before we even know it. The language we acquire controls the way in which we perceive; we see through others’ words, and that becomes our world, our picture.

Meanwhile, pure consciousness is wordless.

Made To Identify

Made to identify.
Made to measure.
Made to conform.

From birth, we are made to identify with something: culture, education, family, language, religion, social standing, fashion, diet, music, sport, career, politics … and we carry around an ID card – an electronic label – to see if we are following the rules. We are supposed to act as if we’re confused or surprised, pretending we don’t see … and we’re expected to validate others’ identifications.

We are none of the above.
Whose game are we playing?
We don’t have an original thought.

All this identification creates a self. We’re told to be ‘true to our self’, and our makers want us to stay that way as part of the production line to ensure more of the same, generation after generation.

How do we break out?

Realisation is breaking out of this system by knowing what we originally are – pure consciousness. We merely have to drop all attachments through silent awareness.

Knowing what we are is a piece of cake.
Dropping attachments is more difficult.
🙂

Your life is not what you think.

Words Are Not The Truth

Words are about the truth – not the truth itself.

Words represent an experience.
If we just learn and repeat words without experience,
we come into conflict with those who do experience.

Best to live in silence,
with an occasional word for the occasional occasion.
🙂

People Won’t Want To Hear This

Lucifer: a psychotic condition that taught us to believe.

When we worship what we believe,
we are Lucifer’s children.

Widening Our View

Widening our view for complete realisation without upsetting anyone.

What we call ‘pure consciousness’ and ‘God’ are the same thing.
We are both pure consciousness and God.

There are those who talk about something out there, up there, down there, using sayings such as “As above, so below” and “We are one with God”, which the cause of great confusion, conflict and misery.

Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning. This is God, our highest part of pure consciousness.

Whatever we need to know comes from pure consciousness. It’s where knowledge and wisdom originate.

What we call ‘me’ is consciousness adopting and identifying with thoughts and calling that ‘myself’. These thoughts are never our own; we only borrow them.

When consciousness drops all concepts, the mind lights up and pure consciousness is present.

As a ‘Buddhist’, God-pure-consciousness illumines hell,
and that clears our path to enlightenment.

How did it all start?
In an infinite universe, there is no beginning.
In infinite consciousness, there is no beginning.

Falling For Propaganda

We know when propaganda is in action
when people don’t or aren’t allowed to talk about a subject.

Speculation and trivia can go viral.
Wisdom doesn’t.

Life Hasn’t Turned Out As I’d Hoped

It’s turned out better.

Life felt wrong … people felt wrong … I hoped that there was something more than this.

I’ve been through many ‘spiritual’ groups throughout my life, all of which showed fanatical formalism, using forms of worship without any display of compassionate essence. Basically, these people weren’t very friendly; they lacked empathetic understanding, and only had eyes for the figurehead in the hope that they would make it all better for them. Groups worship groupthink.

In letting go of it all, a great change occurred. It’s not easy to put into words: the closest I can get is some sort of inner inspiration and gratitude. All the anguish was a blessing in disguise – an apparent misfortune that eventually has good results, for which one is grateful. There is a sense of gratitude that one’s inner questioning had been right.

Letting go and actually seeing for the first time
– rather than seeing through others’ eyes –
is uplifting.

On Marpa’s return journey from India to Tibet, his associate threw his notes and texts overboard, leaving Marpa with nothing.

All he had left was whatever was actually experienced.
Wisdom is not in the words.

How Do You Know You Aren’t Mad?

How do you know you aren’t mad?
By recognising your madness.

This is the unity of the two truths.
The dark is only known by the presence of light.

Life/Incarnation Is Just One Day – Today

Life/incarnation is just one day – today. Yesterday has gone. Tomorrow hasn’t happened. Don’t think, “I want a happy life”. Just have a happy day. Then, perhaps, you will have a happy life. 🙂

We cannot change the world as the majority still believes that conflict will change things. Happiness is the release from distraction and anxiety. In the moment now, there is only spontaneous presence, before we’re taken over by reactions.

A contented moment leads to further contented moments. Whether there is reincarnation of body doesn’t matter because we are content, and prepared for whatever occurs.

Reincarnation is an ongoing process.

How Does Reincarnation Work?

Firstly, we have to get our head around the truth that we are eternal consciousness. One simple example is that, since our birth, consciousness has never changed. This is very significant, but due to our desires which distract us, we forget or ignore this important fact.

We’ve accumulated many fixated ideas throughout this eternal process, and these have become our individual habitual programming. It is this continuity that reinvents itself, moment by moment. We have become predictable – and if we can catch this moment, we arrest this cyclic existence.

Catching this moment is done through the method of meditation. In pure meditation of resting in pure awareness, there is no programming – we’ve dropped out. It is for each individual to recognise the significance of this moment.

Our problem is that, in each moment, we reinvent ourselves. That is reincarnation. It’s what is called the vicious cycle of existence. At death, due to this residue of ideas, we continuously take on a new flesh-suit until we realise our true essence.

Incarnate: Latin incarnat- ‘made flesh’.

Meditation Is Natural Awareness

Meditation is being naturally aware that we are this awareness.
What could be more natural than that? Just b e i n g  a w a r e.

Noting that there is nothing else in the mind is pure awareness, pure consciousness.
What is more natural than just b e i n g  a w a r e?

Our Self Is Fooling Us

We don’t fool ourselves; our self is fooling us.

What we claim to be ‘me’ is a construction of ideas and thoughts in the mind. When consciousness recognises this foolery of imagination, all mind activity becomes our teacher, showing us what we are holding onto, and why.

Self will be with us until we give up this ghost.
🙂

Waking Up To What’s Actually Happening

Waking up to what is happening in the world is not enough. That isn’t actually waking up – it’s still the dream. We have to wake up to what’s happening in our mind that misdirects our reality of consciousness.

As long as we ignore our reactions, we will be forever ensnared by our cleverness. This misdirection is how evil works.

When we think we know what ‘they’ are doing and pontificate about it, we’re still involved, being captured by the show. We remain the audience, as the shadow projections in Plato’s cave.

Meditation is disengaging from this engagement. Dropping all our clever ideas is the way out – and the path to enlightenment.

Enlightenment can never be realised by thinking about it.

There’s much confusion and speculation when the words ‘dimension’ and ‘realm’ are used to refer to spiritual development. These words suggest ‘place’, with length, breadth and height as if there is another reality – somewhere to go to. All the holy-day brochures for spiritual tourists suggest that they’re the ‘place to be’. 🙂

Levels (or yanas), on the other hand, are to do with understanding and realisation, and are an indication of how open and clear we are.

Twisting truth obscures practicality.
Dimensions and realms are ‘somewhere’ else.
Levels are right here, right now.

It’s up to each individual to discern meaning.

The More We Realise

The more we realise, the simpler it all gets.
Is Buddhahood something miraculous, or something ordinary?

Perhaps everything we’re told
is actually the opposite …

Artificial Intelligence Deceives Us

Artificial intelligence deceives us
so that we don’t know what’s real.

Words are artificial intelligence that deceives us
so that we don’t know what’s real.

Words are information that creates an intellectual understanding, but not the experience. This intellectualisation conjures up interpretations and exaggerations that make us lazy. How can words be the truth? Worshipping words distracts pure experience.

Jesus is seen differently by the three theistic religions. Three interpretations – which one is right? From the perspective of a ‘Buddhist’, Jesus was obviously a realised person who knew what our reality is, but his teaching was interpreted to suit certain agendas – sets of words – reflecting the underlying intentions of a particular group.

Agenda: things to do and say, as opposed to what we are already.

Looking Within? … Look Out!

Twisting truth.

We are told to look within to ‘find ourselves’, either as an introspection or to discover our true reality. This is a misguided misunderstanding of the process. That which is within is looking out; it’s conscious awareness, just being aware. In pure conscious awareness, there is nothing to look into as there are no features.

Even when we’re looking at the reactions in the mind, it is still conscious awareness that sees those words and pictures. When that which is within looks out, reacts and is captured by thoughts, this obscures what’s within. This obscuring is our dream state, and it’s important to acknowledge this.

Carl Jung said, “When we look out, we are dreaming. When we look within, we are awake.” When this is observed in practice, however, it is seen to be incorrect. We are that which is looking out, and this is consciousness.

Looking within is counter-productive.
Noticing the reactions and behaviour that obscure looking out is enlightening.
Just seeing is our reality.

Look, see, drop … all attachments.

Reality is not in looking within.
Reality is that which is looking out.