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.

Becoming Judgemental

We all need to judge whether a thing is beneficial or harmful but, in being fixated and obsessed about those judgements, we become judgemental. One is momentary, while the other is our programme for life.

If we do not like someone or something, or a group of people, we have to look behind whatever caused that situation. This stands to reason, doesn’t it? Because a small inner circle controls a society, it doesn’t mean everyone agrees.

If we “throw the baby out with the bath water”,
we lose the good parts as well as the bad,
because we rejected it as a whole, instead of just removing what is bad.

Before we are judgemental about others,
we should look at our own motivations.

“You hypocrite!
First take the speck out of your own eye,
and then you will see clearly
to remove the speck from others’ eyes.”
– Matthew 7.5

Sharing Knowledge With Dissenters

Sharing knowledge with those who have a closed mind is idiotic,
as it will end in conflict.

Belief closes minds and destroys unity:
truth and belief are not amicable bedfellows.

“Do not give dogs what is holy;
do not throw your pearls before swine.
If you do, they may trample them under their feet,
and then turn and tear you to pieces…”
– Matthew 7.5

Provoked Or Charmed?

The moment before the Buddha attained enlightenment,
he was attacked by desire and aversion.

Enough said.
🙂

Sanitising The World

If the rawness of life is disguised
so that people do not experience emotions,
wisdom will be disguised.

Covering up emotions denies enlightenment.

In the moment before enlightenment,
the Buddha was attacked by desire and aversion.

Spirituality isn’t about feeling nice;
it’s about transcending emotions.

Belief Reinforces ‘I’

The more we adhere to belief,
the more we compound an illusion,
engendering either insecurity or pride.

In pure consciousness, there is neither insecurity nor pride. There is nothing to defend in the reality of empty cognisance. Pure consciousness is not a belief; the evidence for this is recognised in meditation.

Belief is groupthink, and has no empathy as it has taken sides.
Pure consciousness is empathetic as it has no sides.

When The Chickens Come Home To Roost

“When the chickens come home to roost”
and
“the cat is out of the bag”,
all will be revealed.

Why the chickens were not at home, and why the cat was in the bag in the first place are things the media wants us to worry about. When we are panicked into flight, fight or freeze, we lose our reasoning power.

Reasoning returns when we see clearly.
What is revealed?

There was no chicken.
There was no cat.
It was all an illusion for us to believe in.

Theorists Do Not Taste

Theories make ‘something’ into ‘something extraordinary’.
The moment of actual taste is silent recognition.

Dharma and compassion can either be experienced,
or just remain something in a book.

Direct experience is silent recognition – there are no theories.
In theory, there is no taste – just imagination.

The rawness of life is life.
The comforter of life is sentimentality.

Realisation Feels Outside Of Time

We watch people going through their predictable routines,
saying, doing, fixating as if they are behind glass.

We can enter their world,
but they cannot enter ours
– unless they knock.
😀

Can An Action Be Neutral?

Anything that manifests has a cause and an effect,
and so cannot be neutral.
Things do not just happen.

Only consciousness remains neutral in its pure state.

Neutral is seeing clearly,
disengaged from fixations.

Making The Most Out Of Life

Life is consciousness, and consciousness is natural goodness. Making the most out of consciousness is realising that we are this pure, good spirit, rather than spending our life trying to look good.

Nature dazzles with sensuality, and colour, smell, taste, sound, touch bring us to our senses. The seasons are a welcomed change as they follow naturally. We needn’t exaggerate this, however: simple appreciation will do, otherwise we turn nature – and our life – into a ‘fascinating’ subject.

Exaggeration is a distraction. If we hold on to exaggerations, we merely fill up time and space. It’s ironic that religions exaggerate talk about good spirit, while actually separating us; exaggeration breeds extremism, and extremism wants to dominate.

There is a difference between wanting to look good
and having a good look.

A good spirit unites us
– and we don’t have to be religious to appreciate a good spirit.

Is Enlightenment Sophisticated?

Sophisticated Sophism.

Sophisticated: developed to a high degree of complexity.
Sophism: a clever but false argument, to deliberately deceive.
Sophistry: a fallacious argument; a mistaken belief.

Maintaining sophistication requires a high degree of complexity.

Enlightenment is the simplest view in the universe.
It is just seeing, without judgement or comment.

What is sophisticated?
Denial.

A Higher Purpose Is Unknowable?

What a confused world we live in.

Some think that there is a higher purpose which is “unknowable”.
What is the point of having a higher purpose that’s unknowable?! 🙂

There are so many blogs like this … so many videos, so many books, so many views, it’s hard to make sense out of it all. The important questions is, “Does this information genuintely add quality to our life, or is it just ‘interesting’?”

If we do not come to some conclusion, we will remain con-clue-sion-less 🙂 Coming to a conclusion doesn’t mean this is fixed; it is our conclusion so far. If this conclusion, however, arrives at “unknowable”, that is the end of our story – not anyone else’s – and any enrichment to our life is negated.

To say that a higher purpose is “unknowable” views others’ ability to realise the enlightened state with contempt. With that attitude, a person is regarding themselves as higher than a Buddha, an enlightened being, while subconsciously, they are trying to pull others down by refusing to acknowledge the enlightened potential in us all.

Is our mental universe finite or infinite?