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.

The Dharma Is Not In The Words

… it’s definitely not in the words.

Once Dependent, We Stay Dependent

Dependent: late Middle English from Old French, literally ‘hanging down from’.

Dependency creates a world of servitude, be it social or religious, where we hang down as trophies. This dependency started thousands of years ago with the introduction of the idea of a heavenly being that is said to have created us. That gave rise to a duality and never a unity, and people created traditions and argued.

Alongside this concept was the view of non-duality – that we are already what we seek – which is pure consciousness, a unity of all appearances without dependency.

One of these views promoted freedom, while the other didn’t.

 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Thou shalt have no other gods before pure consciousness.

Creating believers creates disbelievers, creating division.
A divided society can be controlled.

Pure consciousness cannot be disproved, and so cannot divide.

If you were to control the world, how would you go about it?
If you were to free the world, how would you go about it?

Why is this important?
It affects your life now.

The One Thing To Remember

The one thing to remember; it’s not an enlightened world.

We may be accused of having an ego, of having a self to improve, but we thought that was normal because of the way we were brought up and educated.

Then, one day, we find that this isn’t satisfying as it makes everyone competitive and unpleasant, even Buddhists. 😀 We realised that there were things we said and did that were idiotic because it was the way of things. It’s not all our fault.

Nowadays, we can easily see how we are being manipulated to conform to others’ standards of thinking that are contrary to wellbeing. Unfortunately, most – unwittingly – do conform.

We may think that we think for ourselves,
but what has been placed in our minds?

Is there a fear of us becoming conscious,
with the clarity to be able to reason about our reality?

We live in a world of others’ memories.
which create and maintain karma,
which creates suffering.

First, we have to recognise the suffering of discontent.

We Don’t Realise How Ordinary Realisation Is

Non-duality is nothing but pure awareness.
There is nothing present to be special.

If we take time to appreciate non-dual awareness,
it’s already a duality.

That was – and is – the very cause of ‘self’.

In non-dual awareness, the senses are wide open, but we aren’t making anything special out of non-duality. We are beyond investigation.

The problem with realisation is that organisations blow it out of proportion to the extent that we may have difficulty relating to the complex arrangement of rituals – but still, we fit ourselves in to be on the safe side! 🙂

Realising that we have become dependent on constant reassurance is the moment of release … freedom! There is nothing wrong with a crutch until we no longer need it, otherwise it inhibits free-flow.

All we need to do is work out our karmic debt by dissolving our habitual re-actions through realising the wisdom in negative emotions. Instead of getting upset by following the path of hope, we become fearless.

Ordinary wisdom is just being there without wanting to be special.

We Naturally Know The Dharma – The Teaching

Once realisation into the nature of reality is established, all that glitters no longer attracts – but each distraction is a teaching.

We can pay a lot of money for lamas or gurus to teach us what we already know. The teachings are about recognition, and not about something new. We believe in the teacher precisely because we’ve paid for it. Easily attracted to showy activities and displays designed to attract and impress, we think these mean more.

Don’t be caught by appearances:
they serve as a reminder of that which acknowledges appearances.

This blog is for ordinary people who don’t think of themselves as special. The Buddha was nothing special as he saw everyone as having Buddha nature. Whether we walk in heaven or hell, it’s all the same. It’s the one taste of experience, pleasant or unpleasant, and it’s how we learn.

A miserable life is a good start.
A happy life … why would we start?

A Sense Of Proportion

There are stages or levels to realisation. To simplify, let’s say there are three:
Conventional reality.
Theory/doubt.
Realisation of our true reality.

Usually, we just live in conventional reality. We think like everyone else, with a slight doubt that maybe there is more, but we are not really bothered, and there is no realisation. Gradually, when doubt increases, conventional truth reduces, but still there is no realisation.

Now we reach a stage where, through doubt, we seek a way to understand; we acquire information and form theories, but still there’s no realisation.

And now it gets interesting, when we actually start to practise :-). Our holding on to conventional reality loosens. There is still doubt and theories but, through experience, the feeling that realisation is possible spurs us on.

What was 95% conventional reality, 5% theory/doubt and 0% realisation, has become 10% conventional reality, 89% theory/doubt and 1% realisation.

This rises to 5% conventional reality, 5% theory/doubt and 90% realisation: the balance of 5% conventional reality and 5% theory/doubt is needed to function in society.

(You may decide that the percentages are different).

We can assume that a Buddha is 100% realisation. If we only have 1% realisation in a lifetime, we should consider ourselves fortunate as, in 100 incarnations, we’ll be a Buddha! 🙂

All we have to do is drop exaggerations. If we ask, “Where am I now on this scale?”, the answer lies in how much we can work on our own – with empathy for others – as we have been through the early stages.

Ultimately, we have no sense of proportion as everything is an illusion, and therefore acts as a reminder. This is unity of the two truths of appearance and recognition: conventional reality appears, but is simultaneously recognised by pure consciousness as an illusion.

There Is No Magic In Spiritual Awareness

There is no magic in spiritual awareness.
The magic has already been applied.
Magic is deception;
it is believing something is real when it’s not.

For thousands of years, humanity has been led to believe in and accept something or other that doesn’t exist without question, turning attention away from the knowledge within. This deception continues today, and trying to negate the deception about something that doesn’t exist is also part of the deception. 🙂 . The apparatus of this magic is the idea of fear and hope.

The magic is constant ‘re-education’; the media sees to that.
Awareness of pure consciousness is the un-magic-ing of ourselves.

It’s Okay To Disagree

It’s okay to disagree, but we don’t have to argue. We just see things differently, and have different abilities to express our understanding. That’s why there are many traditions. One person’s nourishment is another’s poison, and another’s poison is someone else’s nourishment.

One size does not fit all. There may be only a few people with whom we see eye to eye because our confusion and doubt are similar, and we achieve a sort of harmony – we suffer together (which means empathy).

Rarely are those who ‘get it’ in harmony as they become competitive. There are therefore many traditions.

This all has to be expected until we are enlightened.
Where we don’t ‘get it’ … we are it! 😀

Why Stupid People Think They Are Smart

“The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates.

People who think they are clever, scholastic or smarter than others are merely at the top of a pile of stupidity. Just think – who are they trying to impress?

Ultimate truth is knowing nothing but knowingness itself. From there, we have clarity to see afresh. The answer we then come up with may be conventional because that is appropriate, or unconventional because that too is appropriate.

We now have a choice.

If we just come up with a learnt answer,
then it’s a dead answer.

Stupid people think one pill suits all.
It doesn’t.

Bhakti Yoga And Social Media

What do they have in common?
Devotion leading to addiction.

Bhakti yoga is devotion to a teacher rather than to the teaching, although the guru uses the teachings to maintain the student/teacher relationship. Guru worship or personality worship is promoted, even in Buddhism.

Both bhakti yoga and social media are like circuses with ring masters, performers and a captive audience in an exotic auditorium.

True devotion is a deep appreciation for absolute truth, rather than for the messengers. This is the reason for this blog, so that you know what you are looking for – that you are what you seek – rather than being part of the parade.

Parade: mid 17th century: from French, literally ‘a showing’.

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

Devotion and social media are both pretty juvenile.

Absolute truth has nothing to do with the way we look.
It is about looking, seeing and dropping
– letting go of appearances which are the residue in the mind.

Don’t Just Follow The Science …

… be aware of the science being used!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR4jEvuoF6I

Do We Actually Have Free Will? 2

(This is in answer to a question; incidentally, if a comment doesn’t come up immediately,
it’s because I haven’t been notified to acknowledge it yet.)

Free will: the ability to choose unimpededly.

Firstly, we have to get the order of perception right. Before anything is seen, there first has to be the ability to see – an eye. Eyes just see – they do not know. What is it that sees through the eye? It is consciousness. But because consciousness sees through a haze of mind products/memories, its clear seeing is obscured. This is especially so when we cling to memories. Consciousness doesn’t just see; it interprets through these memories which have become the basis of our understanding. We see no further, and this is the reason why we are dissatisfied and suffer.

This creates a habitual reaction – our version of reality – and it is that which we call free will. Actual free will, however, was a few stages back, not in ordinary consciousness but in pure consciousness, which the final and first observer but which we ignore. This is the basis of what the ancient scriptures call ‘ignorance’, or maybe the origin of sin. 🙂

Choice means making a decision based on our understanding. That isn’t free will; that is doing what we want according to our personal agenda.

There is, however, that which precedes free will, and is present before a choice is made.
That is unimpeded pure consciousness, free of judgements and prior to decisions.

Judgement is done in the mind, due to the level or limitations of our understanding.
If our free will denies others’ free will, this is a misjudgement resulting from an incorrect assessment.

When we can drop the ideas stored in our memory-box-mind, we see without the habitual hinderance of old thoughts (which are usually others’ thoughts). This is achieved through realising that consciousness (where observation comes from) actually has no thoughts. It is that which is unimpeded. When we step outside the door to see whether it’s warm or cool, there is that which is present before the decision is made. That is consciousness.

This is only acknowledged in the clarity of still silence of meditation – silent awareness – where we can realise clearly that we are not our thoughts. We are that which is observing them. Pure consciousness.

The mind is a library of limited experiences/filters that consciousness sees through. This mind can either be used as a personal entertainment centre, running in circles for personal gain, or to express the qualities of experiencing pure consciousness in empathetic compassion to inspire others to realise their true reality.

At the very least, we do no harm.