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.

Hollow Forms

A form is an empty mould into which material is placed in order to activate a replica, a copy, a clone. That is what has happened to our minds, and is the reason why we are habitually and predictably in conflict with our true nature. Who created the form?

The reality of a hollow form is its emptiness. When the mind is empty because of the realisation of our essential nature of pure consciousness, we live in the reality of all potentials.

At the moment, we’re no different to Schrodinger’s cat – placed in a sealed box (mind) not knowing if that mind is dead or alive, until the box (mind) is opened.

Until we open our mind,
we won’t know what’s in it,
and why we do and say what we do and say.

The distinctive feature of an enquiring mind is ? not !

Why Do We Make Excuses?

Excuse: justifying a fault or injustice.

Why are we so ready to take sides?
Do we make excuses for a cosy life?
Is “I believe” our downfall?

Why do we make excuses for others when what they say doesn’t make sense? We turn a blind eye to possibilities because the truth may be uncomfortable, or even too shocking. The Dharma is about what is actually happening behind the scenes in our mind. When we accept propaganda – misleading information – as truth, we are bound to confusion.

There are two aspects to every situation; the form and the essence – what something looks like and what it actually is.

Pure consciousness sees all, but the mind judges unfairly through bias, based on very few factors.
We comfort ourselves with excuses. It’s lazy thinking as we fall into cliches to sound caring and honourable. This enables the misleading state of affairs to continue.

For the wordly, absolute truth is uncomfortable;
they rely on very old news (thousands of years old)
rather than seeing the effects in their mind right now.

The Science Of Meditation

This is the most important science that we need to know about what we are, otherwise we are literally dreaming, living in our minds. That’s no way to live. It is only through meditation that we are able to verify that we’re not just consciousness, but pure consciousness, which cannot be realised by thinking, reading or talking about it.

Meditation is scientific because it is personal investigation into the nature of mind, and its effects on consciousness, and our behaviour. This has nothing to do with being ‘religious’, as religion is a formalised structure of words and rituals, and it’s up for interpretation.

Meditation is the method that leads to the real thing; what we ultimately are, the moment we drop or let go of the method. It’s like wanting a drink of water – having drunk, we don’t need the water any more. Holding on to the water is pointless. It’s the same as wanting inner peace; once achieved, the wanting is futile.

Meditation is cutting through the games of rationalisation we play,
to maintain our pride and stupidity.

The science of meditation
unveils our psychology to consciousness,
and releases us.

Belonging: Property Of

When we belong to any ideology, we are that ideology’s belongings; this forms our bindings, which limit being.

To be a full being, we traverse the path of the middle way beyond sides, beyond stickiness. The middle way is the light of clarity, the shock or glimpse of reality, before we ‘fall’ into memories in the shadow world of the mind.

Whether high-brow – intellectual wrestling – or low-brow – seeking gross thrills – it’s all the same; we identify with a label – believer or non-believer, conformist or non-conformist.

The middle way is neither accepting nor rejecting.
Our belongings are our karmic mental baggages
which serve as our guide;
the pointing-out instruction to remind us to be aware on our path to now-here.

God? Self? Consciousness?

This is a matter of individual understanding, rather than group-think. Some believe in a God-creator. Some believe in a self identity. Some believe they are consciousness.

Eloquent people discuss/argue, “There is God!” / “There is no God!”. These are extreme designations meant to maintain divisiveness and conflict, and this has been working very well for thousands of years.

God, self, pure consciousness cannot be defined. What if they were all the same thing? That is the secret no one talks about. We are what we seek, the supreme being that cannot be defined; the royal seat.

There is no right or wrong about this.
It is an individual understanding,
a realisation that we each come to.

And nothing to get hung up about.
🙂

People do get hung up about this, and they have to come to a realisation in their own good time, when their karma is in the right condition, which is when the I/ego identity is exhausted, creating conducive karmic circumstances.

This is not something to believe in; it is what we need to know.

“It’s Beyond Me!”

It’s not complicated, it’s not difficult, it’s not time consuming. It’s natural. What’s ‘it’? It is the pure, natural understanding of intelligent life within – pure consciousness, beyond self, beyond the mind which is an identification, a limiter.

Beyond my understanding is the essence of life that is not political or religious or competitive. It is natural effulgence that shines brightly. Neither accepting nor rejecting, it is nothing but goodness.

In understanding this, we may be able to understand the essence of the word God. We are bound up in the material world where there is the expectation that ‘goodness’ must do this or that, not realising that we are the supreme effulgence, beyond all machinations. 🙂

A limited view creates misunderstanding and conflict.
A limitless view is without boundaries, and beyond ‘me’.

Trying To Explain Something Beyond Explanation

Trying to explain something beyond explanation
cannot be done.

Any explanation or commentary is inaccurate.
Pure consciousness can only be realised without words.

Relating And Not Relating

Relating to others can only be a generalisation
as we each have individual karmic attitudes.

Words are also a generalisation;
they’re not the real thing, as that has to be experienced individually.

The closer we come to reality, the nearer we are to the open door, but the less we can relate this opening to others. Why? Because they don’t see the same opening. Our true nature is nothing extraordinary: it’s not a common experience as it’s the simplicity that others cannot understand.

When people react to a subject, they’ve closed the door,
and communication cannot continue.

The door is only an opening with nothing supporting it,
ergo, there is no door
– we have been in the open all along.

The open door is pure consciousness.
The result of realisation is a mixture of joy and sadness.

Form And Formless

Stuck and unstuck.

Form is the material world of ideas, rituals, words and symbols.
Formless is what we are – pure consciousness.

Meditation is the form.
Non-meditation is formless.

Form is ‘religion’.
Formless is the fruition when we drop ‘religion’.

Stuck in the form is the vicious cycle of religious existence; the cult of worship.
Unstuck is realising we are that which we seek.

It matters not what others say; it matters how we see.
Enlightenment – the great unstuck-ness.

‘Good’ Trauma …?

Trauma is usually associated with unpleasant events or conditioning which leaves it mark throughout our life. They are ‘wounds’ we carry around – fear, anxiety, phobias – and this gives us the potential of being able to empathise with others’ suffering because we too have felt it.

‘Good’ trauma has the same effect of leaving its mark; good education, a nice upbringing and a good job, giving rise to pride and entitlement … and an inability to adapt to or empathise with the suffering of others. We can have a good start in life, mixing with the nice people and being been told what to do and how to do it, and so we fit in.

But can we deal with the unexpected? This is when we experience fear, anxiety and phobias about dealing with other people outside our spectrum.

Unpleasant trauma is suffering, and is the first cause on the path to enlightenment. 🙂 Never look down on others – even if they feel they are superior – as we all carry around our own burdens.

For those who are ‘happy’, we have compassion.
For those who are unhappy, we have empathy

The Invasion

Invasion: an intrusion into another’s domain.
That domain is the mind.

There are physical invasions, but before that comes the mental invasion – the preparation of the mind by agent provocateurs. In modern terms, this is referred to as ‘undercover operations’ to entice or incite others to go along with an idea without people noticing that their mind and attitude have been altered.

An indication of intruders is that we think this is all normal.

To expel these demons, we have to practise being aware by not reacting. The clarity of meditation dispels darkness. Once we know our true reality – the light of pure consciousness – this illumines all intruders, especially subtle emotions lying in ambush just under the surface, like agent provocateurs …

We need a smoke-and-mirrors alarm
to alert us to any proposal that, when examined closely,
proves to be an illusion.

The Problem With Insightful Statements

Throughout history, there have been many insightful statements – which make no difference to us. They are mainly filed at the back of our mind as clever and interesting, but they don’t change our attitude. This makes words meaningless, which they are until we investigate them personally to see if they are true or not.

Just because a guru says something doesn’t make it the truth. And it’s here that we have a problem. We may have good intentions, but these cloud reality when we jump in with both feet without realising that we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of wonderland. Believing is not the same as knowing.

Drop everything.
What is left?
Awareness.

What was it we dropped?
🙂

The Highest Form Of Ignorance

“Condemnation before investigation is the highest form of ignorance.”
Albert Einstein

If we condemn others before we know why they think the way they do, we are peddlers of ignorance.

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

How do we investigate? We watch the mind at work, and note the effect of likes and dislikes. That which notes has no likes and dislikes; it is just aware. This is pure consciousness. We are the investigator, which is realised as pure observation.

If we ignore this, we condemn ourselves to perpetual ignorance, the root of all evil.

“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
Plato