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 Power Of Suggestion

A suggestion primes the mind as a foundation for future events, like a hypnotist who comforts and relaxes the mind prior to making a suggestion to a receptive mind. When we are young, we are very susceptible to suggestions, and that is where it starts. Actually, no, it happened to our parents and grandparents … for thousands of years. Suggestions are passed on like memes.

Words or phases are adopted by the mind without actual experience, and we repeat them from our script of cliches. Once the words have settled in, their meaning can be subtly changed and manipulated, and we don’t notice.

Don’t think of this as theoretical – suggestions are in our mind now. If someone pushes our button by, for example, mentioning a name, off we go. This is neurolinguistic programming.

A global non-elected ‘organisation’ that has power over most politicians in the world asks,
“Is climate inaction a human rights violation?” suggesting that stronger steps are ahead of us, if we do not comply with this unelected ‘organisation’. How can this happen? We are sleep-walking while our minds are being manipulated. Every day, our minds our bombarded with words, phrases and names, telling us who to love and who to hate.

The essence of mind of pure awareness,
either notes this charade or doesn’t see it.

Realising this charade is the presence of pure consciousness,
that allows wisdom to sort the wheat from the chaff,
and decide who to trust and who not trust.

The Secret Hacking And Draconian Engineering Of The Mind

How does wickedness work?
Through fear, delay of action, and censorship.
Fight, flight and freeze = the primitive brain.

If we do not share knowledge of our true reality, then it is we who are engaged in censorship. Algorithms and the media send us all over the place with spurious ‘information’. People are losing their minds. If we do not speak up, but endorse midsguided information, the world becomes more confused, and we can only blame ourselves.

Ezekiel 33:4-6:
“4 then if anyone hears the trumpet, but does not heed the warning, and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head.

5 Since they heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves.

6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people, and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.”

Censorship and ignorance have been with us for a very long time. Are our leaders accountable to the people, or to something else? To die and know that we tried to be of benefit to others is a fruitful life. To die and ignore the falsehood played on others – and so be a part of that falsehood – is a fruitless life.

The truth is that we are the very essence of mind, which is pure awareness.
Once we know this, everything falls into place … eureka!

Events do not just happen.
There is inspiration everywhere on our path.
To ignore is to suffer.

Evil In The World

By now, we must know that there is evil in the world, which has been around for a very long time – as long as humans have existed.

Unfortunately, there are many who don’t notice this situation as they think they’re only human. The censorship of knowledge sees to this by affecting our minds through our use of language, so we turn a blind eye to the meaning behind the words.

This is how evil captures consciousness, and turns it away from its reality. Evil is the show, and the show must go on … and on. We are consciousness and, on investigation, we realise that we are pure consciousness.

Evil does not want us to know this: “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge…”

“You may eat freely from every tree of the garden
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;
for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
– Genesis 2.17

How Many Been Enlightened In The Past 100 years?

I mean super-duper enlightened, and not just repeating good words.

What if enlightenment wasn’t super-duper, but just a realisation of our essential reality that is pure consciousness obscured by attraction, repulsion and indifference? How many super-duper-miracles-of-old have there been recently? We live on very old stories from books, which people and organisations have then translated and commented on. Maybe it’s all Chinese whispers, where we hear – or mishear – something without experiencing, and pass this on to the next person, and so on; it all becomes more exaggerated … and more holy. It could happen … it’s called rumour and gossip, and causes harm.

When I first had personal interviews with Tibetan lamas, I used to ask, “Should I prostrate to you?” Where did I get that idea from? Why do we bow when passing a shrine? So much is hear-say and hear-do. Respect is one thing, but worshipful display that was meant to counteract our pride now actually displays it. It’s all monkey-see, monkey-do.

Thinking that enlightenment is super-duper, we live in hope of something unattainable, and so we’re never good enough; we feel poverty-stricken, when all round us, people are fawning. I’ve done some daft things that counteracted genuine experience.

What if enlightenment was simply knowing what we are, and whatever obscures this knowingness? In this way, we can easily live a happier life, not dependent on memories from days of old.

Do we have to sit in meditation for six years, non-stop?

Meditation is a tool:
when we don’t need it, we put it down.

Smart Meters, Smart Phones, Smart Money, Smart Cars, Smart Roads …

Do you get the feeling we are being smarted?
🙂
Smart: a  programmed device, capable of some independent action. Also means a sharp pain.

Ever feel that the walls are closing in … fast?
Or is it all ‘for our convenience’?
Or are we to become even more dependent?

Who’s making up these rules?

What Causes Our Reactions?

Reaction: done again.

If we do not understand the cause of our doing-it-again, we become fixed in our ways of thinking. Why is this so important to understand? Even if we do not know what causes our reactions, others do, and take advantage of this information. There is a psychology out there that can instigate and perpetuate our reactions – when we think we are thinking for ourselves. It is based on our personal likes and dislikes. When we’re indifferent to the cause of our reactions, we can then be swayed one way or another, as our indifference or ignorance is noted.

Such manipulation is deep-rooted, and means that we don’t notice this theme running throughout our history.

Psychology is so refined that we can be made to believe black is white and white is black, that good people are bad and bad people are good, that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, that left is right and right is left. As long as we believe in something – anything – we are caught and held in purgatory, being purged of realising our true nature of pure consciousness and wisdom. It’s the opposite of what we think ‘purifying’ is.

Our minds are constantly being prepared for future discord. Psychologists know about brand awareness, where the brain lights up when presented with an image, before we are even aware of it (and most people haven’t a clue what is happening to them). All uniforms and robes create brand awareness, where we automatically become humble, subservient and worshipful.

What causes our reactions?
Identity.

Togal is realising the spectral appearances in the mind;
it is the gap of sanity seeing through the mind’s illusions.

A reaction to an illusion is the magician’s trade marK.

Mark: a target, a person who is easily deceived or taken advantage of

Whatever you think is happening,
consider the opposite.

Misunderstanding Leads To Speculation

An unenlightened society is, by definition, corrupt.

Misunderstanding leads to speculation and, unfortunately, on to arrogance and narcissism. This is what narcissists do: they constantly move the goalposts and nitpick, maintaining a lack of empathy to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually dissatisfied with you, or with their life.

They will declare, “Life’s a mystery!” quoting ‘-isms’, which means ‘taking a side with’ or ‘an imitation of’, and is often used to describe philosophies, theories, religions, social and artistic movements and behaviours, in many cases with a grandiose narrative.

Believing in some -ism means accepting without proof. Even Buddhists can do that. 🙂 When a narcissist moves the goal posts, they constantly shift and redefine expectations so that they can never be met. It’s a tactic of manipulation, and a form of gaslighting where others are made to feel worthless. Even spiritual teachers can do that. 🙂

Academic speculation is dry knowledge. We may read something that sounds wonderful, but it doesn’t mean we that realise it personally; it just adds to our speculations, which is a form of gambling, in the hope of gain.

Understanding is a powerful faculty of abstract thought, being sympathetically aware of other people’s feelings and how they came about. This faculty may be used for good or evil – a constant dilemma for human beings.

The Radicalisation Of the Mind

Radical: change relating to the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.

The mind is a faculty which perceives through the senses and store information, observed by unadulterated consciousness. That is what we are – pure consciousness. This is our normality. Through persistent misinformation about our reality, however, our minds are stimulated, and we become radicalised; consciousness adopts a persona, a self, a behaviour.

Unadulterated consciousness is like a baby, innocent but learning to cling to toys (ideas) by believing them to be real, and so consciousness wears a self-identity.

We become radicalised through fashion.

Fashion – ‘to make happen’ – creates excitement, and then fashion – ‘to make happen’ – changes. What we were told was good now becomes bad, and what we were told was bad is now good, thus confusing and dividing society. For example, sexualisation can be moulded/fashioned to excite, and is then demonised.

The vulnerable are left hanging in confusion.
The do-gooders point the finger.
The fashion-makers bank their winnings and gain more power.
The fashioners and influencers radicalise the common mind.

We all become caught up in radicalisation and are swayed to go one way, to then be driven another. This creates zealots and victims, and both inflict deep wounds.

Being human means being easily addicted to belief because we lack clarity of reality. We learn songs in childhood that pledge allegiance to country and religion, building a foundation for future confusion.

All this either keeps us busy as we become involved, or sends us to sleep with a feeling that it’s “nothing to do with me”. Either way, it turns our attention away from our true reality.

This is world history, and about as enlightening as gaily-coloured carousel, going up and down and round and round, while we fail to notice that we can get off at any time.

Always Consider The Opposite

Consider: there is no such thing as pure consciousness.

What are we left with?
Impure consciousness or impure awareness.

In that case, we would perceive everything
as confused or muddled.

If we see the world as muddled,
how do we know this?
🙂

Truth stands to reason.

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.