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.

Teacher Student Relationship

The teacher is the mind.
The student is consciousness.

The mind shows us all our negative reactions, and why they come about.
It can also express whatever consciousness realises;
our true qualities of empathetic compassion.

An outer teacher is a reminder of the inner teacher.
In this way, everyone becomes our teacher.

The only authority an outer teacher is the authority we give them.
Authority: from Latin auctoritas, from auctor ‘originator, promoter’.

All that glitters … may just glitter. 🙂

How Was Yesterday’s Practice?

“Am I awake?”

Introduce a thought or, when a thought arises, or notice you are in vacancy (such as while watching a film or just sitting, staring) and ask, “Am I awake?” At that moment, you are awake.

Alternate between the two states of being involved (bound in a dream-world) and being awake. That moment of awakening without “much ado about nothing” is pure consciousness.

It’s that simple.

Freedom is being awake, truly awake.
Wisdom is being awake.
Empathy is being awake.
Happiness is being awake.

Happiness is the relief from the suffering of our inner anxiety.

When Are We Awake?

We are only awake when we’re aware of being awake.

Usually, we are occupied in our mind, in a dream state.
The difference between being in this dream state and being awake
is such a subtle distinction that we hardly notice it.

Every time we’re occupied in thought or vacant, we aren’t actually here now.
When we’re awake, we are in neutral, neither occupied nor vacant.

In the moment when we’re asked, “Are you awake?” we are awake,
because it’s an odd question, and pulls us up suddenly.

But then, we go back into wondering,
and return to our dream state of memories.
Being in a dream state, we cannot let go.

Being awake is silent awareness.
We can do all the things we have to do,
but we can let go, and return to wakefulness.

We are actually more awake than we realise,
but it goes unnoticed and undervalued
for something more interesting … me relating to other.

We can only know by testing this.

Dharma Is Beyond Boundaries

One question that destroys all theories.
Is the universe infinite space?

The universe has to be infinite space to contain
one big Bang and one big God.

Experts are people, and people who adopt a concept, and base everything around that concept.

NASA has discovered a system of stars that formed just 390 million years after the Big Bang.
A Big Bang inside what?

The other idea is that God created everything. If the universe is infinite, did God only create one Earth?

From a Dharma perspective, both these views are theories. Neither can consider karma, the natural result of cause and effect – the vicious cycle of eternal existence of constant turmoil.

The laws of nature are attraction, repulsion and inertia in infinite space.
The laws of mind are desire, aversion and ignorance in infinite consciousness.

This only stops when the laws of mind become the laws of wisdom, and enlightenment occurs.

The Truth Cannot Be Told

The absolute truth cannot be told,
written about or spoken,
as it can only be realised through experience.

Absolute truth is beyond words.
Words confuse, but confusion shows the way.

Words are relative truth;
it’s how ignorance relates its confusion.
🙂

Don’t Join Buddhism!

If we merely join something because of someone we know, we have to know what we are doing and why. It’s the reason that I started a blog.

Understand the teaching of the Buddha – any Buddha.
A Buddha is someone who has realised the ultimate nature of reality,
and there have been many of them.

The problems in the world are due to people’s intolerance towards others.
Creating a religion creates boundaries = other traditions and other ‘translations’.

The Buddha realised the Vedic teachings from beyond northern India.
Buddhism is something created after the Buddha’s enlightenment,

Join the realisation!
😀

The me Behind Me

Behind what we think we are is the essence of pure consciousness.

We may think that thoughts are immediate,
but it stands to reason that, before a thought can arise,
there must be an awareness already present.

That – is what it’s all about!
That – is where we start.
That – is where we finish.

Pride Comes Before A Fall

If we’re conceited or self-important,
something will happen to make us look foolish,
and we realise that we are not as special as we think we are.

Whatever we think we know, that in itself reveals partial understanding. We can live a life with pride in what we do and say, but when we’re taken outside our comfort zone, we fall apart, just like everyone else.

Knowing something isn’t the same as pure knowingness – these two are worlds apart.
We can be clever and talented, but still not know what we are.
We can be a simpleton, and know what we are.

When we know what we are, we know what everyone else is.
That is the definition of compassion.

Two Systems: Two Prisons

One totalitarian, and the other, living the dream.
Living the dream? Whose dream?
These states are both prisons.

We may think we have freedom, and are awake. That is the illusion; we are living by others’ standards. The scary thing is that people are being pushed to extremes, which creates understandable but superficial reactions. We may complain, but the extremes are still going ahead. As P.T. Barnum said in the 1800s, “Never give a sucker an even chance” and “There is one born every minute.” That’s what ‘they’ think about us.

We are constantly being primed for our safety on the conveyor-belt of compliance – but is compliance just a symbol of subservience?

Religion is the same. Whatever is said may be true, or it may not. How do we know? It is the knowingness/consciousness that is the truth, rather than whatever consciousness is directed towards. It’s a simple magician’s trick. Ultimately, consciousness, uncontaminated by ideas, is pure consciousness; it is empty cognisance, free of extremes.

Got A Spiritual Problem?

Who you gonna call?
Ghost Busters?

You can’t talk to your teacher, or to other students. Why not? They will merely give you doctrine from that tradition, and their background, but they won’t know your background – you are not a blank sheet. So who you gonna turn to?

The problem is not out there with people, or in our mind. The problem is identifying with people, and whatever is in our mind. Spirituality is merely consciousness. The idea of ascending is just the levels of realisation of pure consciousness, and how long we rest there. It starts with a moment. Gradually, through practice, this moment extends to every moment … more or less. 🙂

Whatever is happening – all the turmoil, doubt and confusion – pure consciousness remains the same. It’s the only spirit we can rely on.

Whatever the problem, it is consciousness – what we truly are – that sees it.
It is not the consciousness of others.

Even though someone may give us good advice,
it is still up to us to recognise it.
😀

Wanting Proof

The proof of truth is a precarious objective these days. It all depends on how we personally read information. Do we work through belief or intuitive experience? I have never met anyone who proves pure consciousness to me but, through the practice of non-dual meditation, there is the realisation that it’s just there, the me beyond me. It has always been there.

The other aspect of realisation is whatever obscures this pure view, and that is fixating on acquired ideas that create karma – our personal belief system! The proof of truth begins with a dissatisfaction in our current approach to life, because we just mimicked everyone else. We went along with our peers – people who sort of think the same way.

Proof of consciousness and the material world go hand in hand.
The mirror and its reflection.

The proof of what is going on in the material world isn’t so easy to assimilate, because of differing views on life itself. Even when confronted with direct knowledge, others cannot or will not see it. Once fixated, it takes a certain practice to unfix ourselves. That practice is non-dual meditation – going beyond the meditation.

In the material world, fear is promoted, so that people do not talk about certain things. Even in families, a certain topic is prohibited, and kept in check. It’s that bad. People have to talk around the subject so as not to upset others. It is that bad. You know the subject that we don’t talk about.

For fifty years, I’ve been following the question, “What is consciousness?”, but never met anyone I totally trusted, because they were all dressed up in a ‘form’ that only spoke about essence, but never had insight into it. The only feeling I got was – “I hope they are right”. 🙂 We only know when we realise – and not on the say-so of others.

There is, however, one person I have been following over the past three years, and that is Dr John Campbell on his youtube channel. If you ever want to see an expert change their view, it’s him. He talks about this subject that he supported and was misled, and then saw what we are not supposed to talk about because, if we do, we get ‘cancelled’ as many have. There are other doctors and professors who think the same way. People have lost their jobs, friends and family due to this subject.

The whole silence around this topic speaks volumes, and indicates how we are manipulated and fixated like the countries with totalitarian-accepting smiles. I don’t come out and mention this because there is vital information on this blog that is for others’ benefit, but it does show how people can be censored, and why secrets are kept.

This is actually a war on the mind and consciousness itself. Having understood this, we can see it in all other areas of life, which have been infiltrated to divide people, going back thousands of years.

The turning point in anyone’s life
lies in one small comment or gesture.

It’s that instant when everything changes –
the moment of realisation or the moment of switching off.
It’s the shock.

Following someone who changes and refines is a very rare event.

How Much Mud Can We Take?

It seems we can hold on to quite a lot of sticky matter.
Everything we touch becomes contaminated.
The mud is ideas that hold our persona,
and is the reason why we keep returning to this cycle of existence.

We have to wash it all off – that’s if we recognise the muddy mess we are in. How many want to admit that? We wash off these ideas, these concepts that we stick to, by proper instruction in meditation. Meditation is the soap, but then we have to rinse off the soap of meditation, otherwise our meditation becomes a sticky caricature of mud again.

Why should we bother?
Until the mud bothers us, we will simply not bother.
It all depends on our level of understanding

Ignorance is bliss.
Realising ignorance is bliss.
🙂

There Is So Much Distraction In The World

The fact that there is so much distraction in the world is the very reason to simplify life. You are not missing out on all the fun, the politics, the news, the games, the oneupmanship. The real quality of life is realising what life is and why we are here.

It’s a shock to realise how far down the rabbit hole of illusion we have fallen. We are the fallen ones, the fallen angels, the spiritual messengers. Messengers of what? We are walking, talking Dharma beings.

All scriptures are about us. We are Buddhas, enlightened beings who have lost our way. The ugliness and the beauty in the world are both the confusion that distracts; in the moments before enlightenment, the Buddha was attacked by demons, and by seduction.

Saying this, we can still appreciate the senses, but not be bound by them.
Tomatoes on toast is yummy. 🙂

Just know when you are being distracted, and bring the attention back to the job in hand, with no expectation of recognition. A job well done – or just the attempt – is satisfying enough.

I cannot ask a previous teacher, “Am I doing good?” That would be soliciting reward, condemnation, expectation, pride, gain … and it doesn’t work like that. Changes in the level of conscience tells all we need to know.

How Much Truth Is There Left In The World?

We are constantly being told how to think and how to obey. People are being ‘cancelled’ for what they think, and we’re all being forced into narrow parameters with the use of official language. In olden days, people had to talk in code to escape detection – perhaps this will happen again to outsmart A.I.

A.I. will not understand context, that consciousness means freedom from thought and ideologies. It will never understand compassion. 🙂

Authorities seem to think we should all think the same way, following their limited view of life. It points to authoritarian way of life, along with a “social credit system” which enforces strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.

This situation should wake people up, but does it?

The Buddha said that the first noble truth is to admit we are suffering. But if people don’t realise that they are actually suffering – many countries are like that now, smiling in obedience – then they are trapped in purgatory, waiting to be purged of individual views.

There is nothing original in our minds.
What is original is consciousness itself
– our original reality is pure consciousness.

We don’t actually need to think!
(When a red car goes by, consciousness already sees it’s a red car; we don’t have to think, “Oh, there’s a red car!” We don’t even have to say the words. 🙂 )

Why Are So Many People Reactive?

Actually, most of us are reactive
precisely because we are unenlightened.
We just function at a certain level and stop there;

All sentient beings have Buddha nature, which means their essence is enlightened – totally free of confusion. Enlightenment is not for those who are special; it is for those who recognise and are prepared to understand the possibility.

But what is the general population of the world doing? We can see by their reactions that their minds are contrived, manufactured, orchestrated and confused about reality. They never consider it. Why not? Is it because of an inability to value consciousness? Is it chemicals? Is it social indoctrination?

All we have to do is be aware that the mind has become confused. We (pure consciousness) are not confused,  but our adopted mind, full of ideas, is. That which is aware of this confusion is our reality, free from confusion.

It’s that simple.
No one said it was easy.
😀

The Ultimate Truth Cannot Be Assimilated From A Book

The ultimate truth cannot be assimilated from a book; the authors had to go through much discipline, as we must. Breaking out of the illusion of ideas that we are just material beings, with a vague hope that we are

 more than this takes courage and fortitude and, above all, recognition that the way we live at this moment is someone else’s assimilation.

As seekers, we acquire a library of books, and as practitioners, we acquire a mountain of notes and practices, and a way of life. When it comes to actual realisation, however, that is done in silent awareness, under all conditions.

Book learners adopt a ‘look’ and sound, and their reaction to simple communication is limited. We all have to go through this woodenness to become alive and adaptive.

Encouragement ultimately comes from life itself – the teacher of all phenomena- that exposes our karmic reactions.

Beyond Experience Is Truth

Truth is beyond experience.
Truth is what experiences.
Truth is the seer.

The seer is pure consciousness.
Pure consciousness cannot see itself;
it can only be realised through its reflection.

Something appears in the mind, and there is a moment of pure experience.
That is the evidence of pure consciousness.

Therefore, you cannot see what you are,
as you are that seeing.

Don’t Fight For What You Believe

Don’t fight for what you believe,
as it only causes division.

Belief is accepting something as true without evidence.
Reading something and saying it’s truth or not is only belief.
Therefore belief has no wisdom.

There are two evils:
ignorance of our true reality,
and maintaining that ignorance.

Wisdom is the realisation of ultimate reality,
we are pure consciousness.

It can be proven by dropping all beliefs
and realising what remains …
… pure consciousness.

We get evidence through genuine experience of knowing,
and not wishful thinking.

Learning To Live With Crap: The Residue Of Ignorance

We are definitely not going to change the people who indulge in beliefs of some sort. Every time someone talks, those beliefs reveal themselves … “Oh, I just heard on the radio …” – it may be true, it may not be true. How do we know?

If the people we listen to are unenlightened – don’t know their true being – they will only be talking about relative, convention things, which is the game of illusions. We get pretty high-and-mighty over material existence, while all the time ignoring what we are and why we are here.

Material existence is the end product – the crap 🙂 – of subtle laws at work. When we know what drives us, we can apply the brakes, and get off.

Where Do We Get Our Information From?

“If you don’t read a newspaper, you are uninformed.
If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”
– Mark Twain

We have to read between the lines; in looking for or discovering a meaning that is implied rather than explicitly stated, we may see the truth. Otherwise, we are just believers.

Do Buddhists Get Offended?

Do Buddhists get offended?
Er … yes.

Buddhists are people too.
🙂

Why would anyone be called a “precious one”?
Because someone said they were?

Don’t be offended at this question.
To question is to want to understand.

Understanding is the very opposite to believing.
When we understand, do we become precious ones?

This must have been the intention of the Buddha when he said,
“Do not take my word for truth; test it for yourself.”

Don’t give your mind away to others;
it’s for you to use properly.

🙂

The World Used To Be Crazy …

The world used to be crazy… now, it’s scary.

In the past, mass behaviours were slow to develop, but nowadays, the process of mimicking others is changing fast, and causing great confusion. As long as people are confused, they will readily accept anything as the enemy. People react, and that reaction is then being censored. Even those with seemingly the same view are censoring themselves.

Conspiracies, misinformation, news-entertainment, UFOs, the second coming when the anointed one will set up his kingdom, judge his enemies, and reward the faithful, living and dead …

Hold on a moment! What if these were all illusions? Why would God judge? Wouldn’t God understand? Why would he reward believers? Doesn’t this all sound like the creation and maintenance of hope and fear?

Isn’t this what religions, politics and science do? They give us hope for a better future through fear of what we have now. But now is the future of those in the past. Nothing changes. We mimic hope and fear, that’s all.

Before realising our true nature, everything was just charmingly crazy. Then, we go through inner investigation and realise why and how it’s going wrong. The scary thing is that, through their elaborations, religions, politics and science create an elitist hierarchy that we hope to join, and fear that we will be left out.

This is no way to live. Who can we trust? To be honest, I do trust the Buddha’s simple teaching but don’t trust Buddhists, precisely because the Buddha said, “Do not take my word for the truth …”

Truth didn’t start with the Buddha.
Truth starts with us realising what any Buddha says.
Truth is direct, first-hand experience.

No, you’re not crazy, but thinking you aren’t crazy is scary.
😀

The Truth Cannot Be Hidden Forever

Truth cannot be hidden forever because truth is the consciousness that is always watching. When people realise that they are the truth, the way and the light, no one can ever pull the wool over their eyes again.

You can hide the truth
from some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time,
but you cannot hide the truth
from all of the people all of the time.

Unfortunately, because most believe or over-react
to whatever changing disinformation they are told,
the confusion rolls on.

Why Make What Is Natural Complicated?

We are pure consciousness. Why make something so natural and beautiful into something so complicated and elitist?

Even through reasoning (a rare event), we can realise that we are pure consciousness. That’s if we have the objectivity to understand without the bias of additional associations. Meditation is realising this so-called mystery, and living daily life free in pure consciousness. Things need to be done, and we do them without holding on to an attitude.

This doesn’t mean we are special.
We live an ordinary life,
attending to whatever needs attention without judgement of good or bad,
thus bringing an end to karmic accumulations.

The creation of rites – solemn ceremonies or acts – separates us from life, making us feel pure and special, and is a dualistic approach to daily existence, feeling holy in hell.

There is no heaven and hell; they are just the experience of the wisdom of one taste. By virtue, of one, the other is known, and they are therefore inseparable. Before the designation of light and dark, there is pure consciousness.

Knowing we are pure consciousness doesn’t isolate us from activities; we still have to do our daily work – fetch water, chop wood – but now life is enhanced in the joy of putting things in order.

When we complicate life with good and bad, life becomes ordinary, or a spiritual entertainment.

Non-duality is simply being one with everything that appears.
‘One with’ is the mirror and its reflection.
What we then do depends on our level of understanding.

Formula; The Unchanging Nature Of Nature

I’ve written before about the three unchangeables: space, consciousness and formula.
Formula: from Latin, diminutive of forma ‘shape, mould’.

Formula is how everything takes shape. It is the nature of everything. We may think of nature as ever-changing, but there is an underlying principle or law at work. That law or formula is attraction, repulsion and inertia (lacking the ability or strength to move).

Inert: from Latin iners, inert- ‘unskilled, inactive’.

We can see that, in human terms, these three principles correspond to desire, aversion, and ignorance. This is nature’s human driving force. Is it created or is it just as it is? How we respond to this question – or not – affects our life.

Having understood this, we can now turn inwards to inner nature. We generally think that consciousness is something that we use to get around and survive, just like nature – but we can never identify what we are. It’s left vague.

We are that consciousness, and there are subtler principles to consciousness:
emptiness/uncontamination, cognisance and compassionate activity.

This what we truly are, but we have become indifferent to or ignore this subtle viewpoint that is present in every moment.

Because we are ignorant of our true essence, we fill it with desires. Desires excite consciousness and activate judgements through aversion. Having formed judgements, through aversion, we lack compassionate understanding.

Emptiness corresponds to desire.
Consciousness corresponds to aversion.
Compassion corresponds to ignorance.

This is how we have turned life upside-down.
Realisation is quite exciting!
🙂

Jumping To Conclusions

The problem with jumping to conclusions about pure consciousness is that we can come to an intellectual belief that we are pure consciousness, but is it experienced? The assumption is a good start, but then it is we who have to prove it, in the silent stillness of meditation. That is where it is first experienced, and then acknowledged in daily life, where we are aware of our true reality behind every occasion and relationship.

In meditation, we are aware of being aware, of being conscious. There comes a moment of subtle vacancy – nothing happening – but we are still aware. That moment of nothing happening is pure consciousness, which is what we are.

The outcome turns our world upside down, and our conduct and behaviour change because we realise that everyone is pure consciousness, but doesn’t recognise it.

The result is empathy – knowing what it’s like not to know. Empathy cannot be an act because true empathy shows. This is challenging as we now have to learn skilful kindness that is direct and has many faces.

The ‘act’ is the main reason ‘spiritual’ people drive me nuts!
😀

Don’t believe what anyone says,
but use it as an indicator of ‘something’.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Realisation has to be acknowledged at every occasion.

We Are Incomplete Without Meditation

In the ‘normal’ run of life we panic, and exhaust ourselves, falling into vacancy.
Simple meditation is sitting in silence, witnessing the distraction (panic).
Gradually, we calm down, and relax by letting go of exhausting distractions.
Meditation is deep relaxation, without falling asleep.

Completeness is beautiful wholeness,
which includes compassion for others.

It’s worthwhile trying
– to realise what we are.