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.

Thoughts Arising In Meditation

All thoughts are related to the past (memories): even if they are considering the future, they still relate to the past. So when a thought appears, just say inwardly, “Past” and let it go, just as a reminder of how we dwell on memories

It’s always good to change one’s pattern, and see if it works.
🙂

The More We Communicate, The Better The World

To communicate is to know what we have in common.

When we only spout the facts we have learnt, this isn’t communication – it’s repetitive, and can be a form of aggression, usually ending up in conflict.

True communication is intimate and honest, and we have the courage to experience others’ suffering and joy. To be honest, both of these are uncomfortable as they are challenging to ego. For those who are suffering, we have empathy, and for those who are happy, we have compassion because that happiness is transient.

True friendship is having generosity, patience, morality, discipline, concentration and, above all, the wisdom to understand. We’ve each experienced every emotion possible; that is the wisdom store.

As students of the Dharma, we need to keep this store open.

Isolated From Reality

The contents of the mind is our barrier to pure perception, as the mind identifies and translates almost immediately, not noticing that a moment of pure perception has taken place, and that pure consciousness is present.

Ignorance of this pure moment means we are isolated
– locked outside! 😀

How do we get in?
Stop believing that the outside is our reality.

When Is Life Complete?

Life is complete when we let go of self-memory.

Mind is memories (software) stored in the brain (hard-drive).
Self is created by the watcher-consciousness that clings to these memories.

When consciousness is in its pure state, there is no watcher, no memories,
but the mind can be scanned for guidance.

This realisation may not make us perfect, but it brings an end to expectations.
We use the limited skills that we have to express the reality within the illusion.

Is there further to go?
First, we have to get over ourself.
🙂

Translations

If someone realises something in one language, in order to communicate this realisation, it has to be translated into others’ languages. As we know, there are many translations of the same text: much will depend on the the translator personally experiencing the original realisation – or it can become a dry translation.

The interesting factor is that realisation is beyond words.
Words can make a fine feast,
but may not supply the nourishment needed to receive that one taste.

Dzogchen text is about our original essence. It’s about what we are now, and not about an intellectual, mystical experience. All we need is a glimpse of what we are, which is pure consciousness.

When I received the pointing out instruction on the direct nature of mind, it was the essence of consciousness that recognised what was happening. This was the direct instruction, indirectly.

Nothing happened. There was nothing! No doubts. It was ordinary. No words were needed. Everything else seemed like nonsense.

What was realised was something I had known since I was four years old, but had doubted because all around me were life’s ‘enthusiasts’.

That was the release.

This is why the Buddha said,
“Do not take my word for it …”

Transcendental Understanding

A transcendental experience cannot be understood in ordinary ways: meditation detaches our self-reality from our actual reality.

Our actual reality is moments of pure being that gradually become more frequent with practice; our self-reality is the practice of grasping.

Grasping = greedy = excessive desire.

In transcendental moments,
we are almost there and not there.
All we need to do is acknowledge and let go.

Love is acknowledging the transcendental in others.
Wave and they will wave back.
Smile and they will smile back.
That is the transcendent wisdom of understanding.

Intellectualisation Blocks Direct Experience

Intellectualisation blocks direct, spontaneous experience which is beyond words. If you want to know how an apple tastes, eat it! Intellectualisation is trying too hard at something that is so simple.

The esoteric is intuitive, while the exoteric is a commentary, which is hearsay and rumour (from Latin, meaning noise) that creates doubt.

In sport, thinking is too slow and intrusive.
The thinker who doubts always loses.

Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for reasoning. We can only realise something through the personal experience of first-hand, spontaneous knowledge, rather than second-hand hearsay.

Those who follow can never be victorious.

The purpose of life is to enrich understanding
towards our next moment, or incarnation.

There Are Many Wise Words

In the past couple of thousand years, there have been many wise words handed down for us to identify with. That is both wonderful, and a subtle problem.

When we identify with words, we identify with names, and that creates a duality – a ‘me’ and a ‘something else’. It’s an extremely subtle trap that creates and maintains separation or division.

To be practical, in conscious awareness we have to realise non-duality, but this doesn’t mean being one with something, as there would still be a duality present.

The question is, what is it that is identifying?
That which is consciously aware and has no name.

The pure experience of true essence is beyond words or names which divide us.
‘Pure’ means without additives.

Personally, I feel that a trick was played on humanity thousands of years ago, and that trick or meme has plagued us ever since: ideas evolve and deviate into different names around ‘one’ theme.