Influencers Influence Influencers …
Influences influence influences,
who influence us.
We in turn influence others.
This is a meme at work –
an element of cultural behaviour
passed from one individual to another by imitation.
TV, the media, films, our chit-chat
– all do this very well.
These influences are the packages that we carry around in our mind.
In the moment now there are no packages,
just the emptiness of awareness, free of influence.
My Karma Is Worry
Worry has been with me all my life. This worry isn’t overwhelming; it’s just seeing possible consequences of an action or inaction. Things have to be ‘repaired’, but which one first? Should I write, or not write? Will anyone understand what I’m trying to say?
All through this lifetime of worry, there been this observation taking place that is separate from the worry. I later this found to be consciousness. It was always there, and I realised that this consciousness is, in essence, pure and uncontaminated.
I no longer worry about my worries; they’re part of my baggage, and consciousness is happy with that because it is aware of it, and shows concern. This concern turns the thought that worry is bad karma into good karma.
“Always look on the bright side of life.”
– Eric Idle
“Some things in life are bad;
They can really make you mad.
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best
And
Always look on the bright side of life …”
Contemplative Essence
Contemplation: a place of sustained observation.
Contemplative observation is our absolutely reality,
resulting in wisdom,
and manifesting in our relative reality as compassion.
From this viewpoint,
the world is seen as constant and compounded misinformation.
Are People Who Trust Themselves A Nuisance?
Are people who trust themselves a nuisance?
Do people think that truth stops at a guru?
Is religion institutionalised guilt?
Have we adopted a persona?
Do we have to use cautious language?
It is all finally down to us.
Do we let the light shine, or do we pretend to be dim?
Should We Be More Skeptical?
Just accepting whatever we are told is plain daft! Don’t trust anyone who expects you to believe what they say to be true. Test it for yourself.
Skeptic: a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions.
Is our life sufficiently precious for us to question everything?
Does our life have a purpose, or is life so insignificant that we try to make something of it?
Question the status quo and status symbols.
The final answer to all our questions
is that which questions.
IQ & EQ = Types Of Human Being
Our IQ (intelligence quotient) is a measure of a person’s reasoning ability, and how well someone can use information and logic to answer questions or make predictions.
Our EQ (emotional quotient or emotional intelligence) is our ability to understand other people, including what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them.
A high IQ but low EQ…
A low IQ but high EQ…
A high IQ and a high EQ…
A low IQ and a low EQ…
A medium IQ and a medium EQ…
This seems to sum up the world,
and why we either get along or don’t get along with others.
IQ is of the mind.
EQ is of the heart.
The Essence Of Mind Is Consciousness
The essence of mind is conscious cognisance, the ability to know.
Whatever is known is then stored as content in the mind, as memories in the form of our thoughts and feelings. Whatever is thought or felt, know that that which is aware of these thoughts and feeling is consciousness. That consciousness is our being – it’s what we are. Without consciousness, nothing would be known, and you wouldn’t be here.
What is the essence of consciousness?
The essence of consciousness is pure, fresh, uncontaminated knowingness, with the ability to know what it is, and what it is not.
What it is: the well-being of ethereal presence.
What it is not: permanent, judgemental memories.
In memories, we are the mind’s contents, fixating upon things.
In essence, we are content in peaceful happiness
This Is How Truth Works
Absolute truth is wisdom.
Relative truth is compassion.
Wisdom: realising our true being of pure consciousness.
Compassion: the manifestation of that wisdom.
We can only have true compassion (love)
when we realise that that very same wisdom is hidden within others.
How The World Was Won
The world was won by mediocracy.
Mediocre: of only average quality; not very good.
Mediocracy: a dominant class consisting of mediocre people, or a system in which mediocrity is rewarded: a mediocracy of successful careerists and yes-men.
When we know our true nature, everything less is inferior.
Except love.
😀
Is Being, Interesting?
The less reified we become,
the less ‘real’ we become,
the less interesting we become.
Become: begin to be.
🙂
The Psychology Of Consciousness
It’s what spirituality is all about.
Understanding how consciousness works will help us realise how we work. If we don’t know the essence of a subject, how can we know about it? All we will do is go through a routine or ritual.
Consciousness or awareness is what we are; this is embodied in a form, created by karma, which is the result of previous actions. The room we are sitting in now is our creation – or we allowed it to be created.
However, consciousness gets involved in this and that, being driven by desire and aversion because of not knowing its true nature (‘not knowing’ is referred to as ignorance).
When we start to open up to the psychology of consciousness through meditation, we discover something unique about ourselves, about consciousness … it has a pure state. This is sometimes called the clear light of bliss. That is home.
The clear light of bliss isn’t about being organised and uniform.
It is carefree and playful.
The Mirror: The Weapon Of Choice
We are all pure consciousness – mirrors that reflect images.
The question is; do we believe in these images, or do we see them as mere reflections?
The way in which we react to these reflections can either be our downfall, reflecting our ‘goodness’ that we project to others = hell, or reflect our faults and become our teacher = heaven.
Imagine a battlefield. A realised person holds up a mirror to an army of mara (demons) who want to bring that person down. All mara sees is their own reflections, which causes them to see what they don’t want to see.
The battle of mirrors.
As all beings are reflecting mirrors, so are these demons who, in retaliation, hold up their mirrors to the realised ones in the hope that the realised ones fall for seeing their own ‘goodness’.
The realised ones can either succumb to their own ‘goodness’, or realise that there no reactive effects whatsoever. This is why our enemies are our best teacher.
Every day, someone wants us to rise to the bait, and be caught in our own reflection.
Realisation isn’t concerned with admiring the reflections;
it is knowing that we are the mirror
Not Guilty Just Misguided
The world around us portrays an image of itself for us to emulate. Being confused about this state of affairs we follow along. We become misguided.
Religions are like that. One never feels good enough, with all the elaboration projected at us, and so feeling embarrassed we emulate. Which comes from the word rival.
The act that ‘spiritual’ people go into is appalling and misguided. Do the smiles have any wisdom or kindness to them? Or, do they just want us to be like them, so they don’t feel so bad. 🙂
The idea seems to be that if people are made to feel worthless, they will easily conform. This is taken for granted, and we leave our brains at the door. Don’t ask any awkward questions like, why are we doing this?
We are Buddha nature now. It just have to uncovered, rather than pile-up with elaborations to feel better about ourselves.
It’s all in the eyes.
Are they open or fixed.
Are they interested or afraid?
😀
Our Reactions To Others’ Reactions
Our reactions to others’ reactions tells us everything that we need to know about ourself. Our reactions are usually defensive, and then become aggressive because of our need to preserve our precious self-image of which we are so proud.
If we don’t react, and instead understand what is happening, we are free of conflict, giving space for the other to either see what they are doing.
When mara (demonic mind) cannot get a rise out of us, it has to move on to someone else, until it realises that trying to feed off others’ reaction only feeds its own misery. We have all been little demons at some time, and found it unsatisfactory 🙂
The love that we give is the love that we receive.
Lulled Into A False Realm of Existence
That’s us.
We are lulled into doing things, and because we get so involved in doing these things, we talk about them as if we are experts. Experts in trivia. But trivia is not our reality. However clever we are, that is not our reality. Our reality is pure perception, before we become involved in things, family, career, entertainment-news…
Sit in silence, and ponder why you chose to do what you did; what are the results, and what are you doing now? Ask yourself, “What am I?”
Having made our decisions, we have to play them out. We cannot just walk away… they follow us 😀 What we can do is stop clinging to trivia, and see how life takes some timely turns for the better, towards the important things in life, and an experience of our true reality.
The natural universe wants the best for us and every living thing,
expanding to our full potential.
The natural universe is all about constant development
and, to do that, things must be put in their right place.
Choose wisely. On our death bed, will we wish we had more wealth and power? Or will we be content to have realised our true reality, with the answers to all our questions?
Wealth only makes us excited, while we remain in poverty to the wisdom of transcendental insight into our true being.
Who are we trying to impress?
Look For Your Self
Truth is the absence of self.
Look for your self.
Describe this self.
Self-image is an illusion.
In pure awareness,
there is nothing but pure awareness.
Our reality is pure observation,
without the idea of an observer.
This doesn’t mean we suddenly vanish.
What vanishes is the illusory self.
That which was hidden for a very long time
is now realised.
Looking never fails.
Those Who Comply Run The World
They enable.
It is the students who give a teacher the authority to teach. No follower, no teacher. When we simply go along with the official narrative of any organisation, we not only give away our power, we also give away our brains.
If the majority comply, the easier it is to control the whole. The curtailing of free speech initiates the silencing of the few who do not see things the same way as the followers, and they are shunned.
Shun: Old English scunian‘abhor’, shrink back with fear, seek safety from an enemy.
Clear thinking isn’t as easy as we might suppose as our minds are full of cliches, and words have many connotations and can easily – if not deliberately – be misunderstood. If we do not speak out, however, we allow the misguided to run our lives.
Goodness knows whatever evil knows.
The Age Of Ideas
We become whatever we identify with.
We think this is the age of things, when it is actually the age of ideas. We are sold ideas from birth to reinforce either a weakened or strong self image. This age of ideas is the age of conflict, separation and competitiveness.
For thousands of years, humanity has been sold ideas and beliefs so that we never look within, beyond those ideas. Buying into beliefs has cost us heavily; a lifetime of misplaced effort.
Belief takes away our power, which is the same old pure awakened consciousness that has been distracted to create enslavement through a belief in ideas. Is life just what we have been told to believe?
Once we realise that which sees this insidious deception,
life will never be the same again.
Insidious: from Latin insidiosus ‘cunning’, from insidiae ‘an ambush or trick’.
Eyes open, mind open, consciousness open.
In clarity, there is no better way to live.
It’s unstoppable.
Free To Realise Our Own Translation
The ultimate truth has always been within,
without the words of others.
Pure consciousness is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
It makes me to rest in naturalness, leading to the quiet waters of my mind.
It restores realisation, guiding me on the paths of righteousness to enlightenment.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death and confusion, I will fear no evil, or I am that pure consciousness; the unpleasant and the pleasant, being of one taste, they comfort me.
Karma presents a life in the presence of my enemies.
I realise I have abundance.
Surely goodness and caring will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in pure consciousness forever.
Just because words are written down does not mean they are the ultimate truth.
The ultimate truth is our realisation of those words.
Ignorance Is Bliss – Perfect Happiness
So they say …
If one is unaware of an unpleasant fact or situation, one cannot be troubled by it. That is the ultimate oxymoron.
Ignorance means that we succumb to the negative forces of jealousy, pride, fear and desire, which make life not only uncomfortable, but a living hell. We have become so used to this way of life that we don’t notice the alternative, the inner wisdom of pure consciousness – the great know-all! 😀
This ignorance reflects on the way in which we conduct ourselves, and is neither wise nor understanding.
There are two aspects to realisation on the path to enlightenment. One is knowing that we have always been pure consciousness – we don’t have to make it happen – and the other is realising the veil that obscures pure consciousness (‘veil’ is an interesting arrangement of letters – it can also spell evil!).
The opposite of ignorance is the wisdom of absolute reality
– the great know-all! 😀
How Many Know?
How many people know their (our) true nature? Some know about our true nature, but that doesn’t mean they know or experience it: it is still theory.
How would we know that they know? 🙂 Well, first, we’d have to know our true nature to be able to recognise that there was something in their conduct indicating an awakened consciousness.
How often do we meet such a person?
Most people on this planet do not know their true nature, and that they have a reality beyond the conventional. They haven’t a clue what’s going on in this world of manipulation. Everything has a cause, and everything can be made to appear to be an accident.
People are encouraged to be involved in this as opposed to that, always taking sides and never realising that they have lost their true reality for someone else’s translation of reality.
Manipulators who are involved in this and that do not know their true nature, but they do know how easily we become addicted through repetition, and they use this knowledge to get what they want.
Wake up!
Open sesame!
(Sesame seeds splits open when they reach maturity,
and so the phrase relates to unlocking a treasure.)
😀
Knowing that we are being controlled and exploited on all fronts should shock us out of complacency but, unfortunately, it doesn’t. Why not? Because we are so used to suits, uniforms, white coats, and robes making us believe that they know, so we now know.
When we realise our true reality,
no one can pull the wool over our eyes ever again.
Ordinary Consciousness And Pure Consciousness
It is a good practice to experience the difference.
Pure consciousness is open presence – ready for anything.
Ordinary consciousness is closed presence – not ready for anything.
If we don’t know pure consciousness, we remain closed in our views. When, however, we do realise pure consciousness, we don’t wander too far into the closed mindedness of ordinary consciousness.
We naturally move in and out of pure consciousness and ordinary consciousness, but may not notice this. Sometimes, we are happy for no reason! Which conscious we stay in longer depends on what we practise 🙂
In pure consciousness, there is just observation. In ordinary consciousness, we start relating. From the perspective of pure consciousness, relating can take a moment. From ordinary consciousness, we fixate on that relating, and so become caught and held – maybe for our entire life.
The practice:
Rest in being totally open to the moment, without relating to anything. That is pure consciousness.
Now, relate to your environment, and see the I starting to identify – before words manifest.
Stop, and return to pure openness.
It’s that simple, and that familiar. It’s nothing strange.
This switching is quite natural; we do it all the time. It is only a matter of being aware both of just being there, and of not quite being there. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to fall into a vacancy, but again, if we are just aware of that vacancy, we are back in pure consciousness.
Realise where contentment lies,
and where trouble starts.
😀
Why Does Evil Use Stress?
Our stress point is our weak point that can be worked on. A little anxiety can be made into worry, fear and even hatred. The evil in us knows how to wind others up, and some of us do this very well -deliberately.
We can feel stress when we are taken away from our natural state of equanimity, which is uncontaminated consciousness. Our contentment zone.
We lose this equanimity when we are unable to control our emotions, and thus create stress for others. Stress is catching … “I’d been trying so hard to stay calm, but in the end, I just lost it.”
The trick to staying calm:
Know that you are being wound up – deliberately.
We are all naturally different.
If we pick away at our differences, the wound will fester.
Diversity: from Latin diversitas, past participle of divertere ‘turn aside’.
The Battle Of Good And Evil Is …
never out there.
The battle of good and evil is never out there; it is within our own mind. The only good and evil out there is within the minds of others. Once we conquer the evil within by realising that it is just based on ideas and, as such, never existed, we can then address others’ non-existent evil by knowing what good is.
What is evil?
Evil is an illusory self-image of personal identity of gain that veils the goodness of pure consciousness.
It’s extremely subtle, but obvious when pointed out.
What is good?
Good is pure consciousness that sees this illusory self-image of personal identity of gain.
It is extremely subtle, but obvious when pointed out.
Why is good, good?
It is beneficial well-being for all.
Why is evil, evil?
Evil creates stress for all.
If We Do Not Meditate …
If we do not meditate,
we will not know how to drop it.
In dropping the meditation, we realise the final answer.
No one became enlightened through meditation.
They became enlightened by dropping the meditation.
Questions arise about the truth of our being, but these questioners only want the final answer so that they can tuck it away in their mental filing system, but still know nothing. Truth has to be personally sought through sequential deduction and subtraction. Every question has an answer, until we realise that there are no more questions.
There is no short cut.
Well, there is …
but that means dropping all our concepts and fixations … now!
Seeking The Right (Magic) Words
All my life, I’ve searched for the phrase, or set of words – the magic spell that would awaken us. I’ve come to realise that this will be different for everyone, as it has to be heard at the right time and in the right place, and probably said by right person.
Every day, a phrase comes to mind, and I wonder, “Does this fit? But who is there to hear it?”
Some days, a phrase will repeat itself – and, at the moment, that phrase is, “Fresh or frozen”.
Fresh is whatever is happening in this present moment, which is juicy and nourishing.
Frozen is whatever is brought in, prepackaged or borrowed from elsewhere, and is cold and dry.
We have come to believe that “fresh-frozen” is fresh. It isn’t. For this reason, the Buddha said, “Don’t take my word for it”. To experience this, we have to refine our taste by knowing that a fresh mind is pure consciousness, whereas a frozen mind is full of intellectual acquisitions.
The only way we can stay fresh and open is to drop all our ideas through meditation. We then have uncluttered clarity and are in the right place, free of contamination and fully receptive.
Right consciousness – right mind – right words – right empathy.
What Is The Ultimate Truth?
It’s for you to know!
Without the ability to know,
what is the point of knowing the ultimate truth?
We are that knowingness, pure consciousness.
We have always been what we seek:
that is the cosmic joke.
🙂
Scientists Want To Put Consciousness Into A Machine?
Their view of consciousness is a perception-memory-decision-making device; the favoured think that they will live forever in a machine.
Consciousness is not a thing. It is life itself, and cannot be switched on and off. Machines can be made to do anything and remember anything, but that’s all. They only appear to be sentient because some scientists think that consciousness is just a decision-maker.
Whatever it is that they think they are putting into a machine will forget it was a living being, beyond perception and memory.
A machine is a just recording device – which, like a dream, could turn into a nightmare. Machines can neither love nor have empathy.
If We Aren’t Willing To Change …
Surprise!
We stay the same and learn nothing new,
just going through set routines.
Seeing things afresh is exhilarating and inspiring. We let go of old habits to take the next step. This is how we learn sequentially through practical experience; we cannot be taught sequentially as individuals have different complications. Letting go of old concepts, we are on the verge of new realisations. We cannot just jump ahead to the answer as we have to do some work to form the right question. Don’t just accept what others say as being true; it’s only true for them.
Understanding Psyche
Psyche: via Latin from Greek psukhē ‘breath, life, soul’.
Psyche is present before thought and the idea of a self-image. Psyche is consciousness itself, although there can be other interpretations. Once we adhere to an interpretation, however, we also create and maintain our psychological profile – a self, a mental characteristic, an attitude. We downgrade the breath of life into a concrete being of likes and dislikes. We fossilise.
Psyche or consciousness is fluid and free of contrivances, but became excited about being free and therefore looked for more stimulation. We can, at any moment, return to our natural state of contemplative clarity and see what is actuallynecessary in our life. Psyche wants to return to its natural state; the equilibrium of happiness.
Deceived By Omission
Deception initiates a complicated cascade of confusion; a social domino effect that feeds our karma.
How?
Razzamatazz = Razzle-dazzle = show business:
a media that deliberately inflates ambiguous language
which omits original truth.
We are so involved with the the show/appearances that we forget to investigate who is writing our script. Unless we know our own reality of uncontaminated consciousness, we will forever be an actor on the stage, trying to impress our audience.
Know what self is, and how it is constructed. Most of all, know that pure consciousness is always watching – the real all-seeing-eye! 😀
Where We Went Wrong!
😀
Basically, consciousness – what we are – becomes excited about being conscious, motivating us to want more, which creates our karma, our life story. And we’re doing this right now …
If reincarnation is correct, then we have been doing this for infinite life times. This is why our habits of likes and dislikes are so strong. Even if we don’t accept reincarnation, this distraction is still evidence that we are constantly moving away from our true reality. And we’re all doing this right now …
How to go right 🙂
We merely recognise what is happening in our mind at every moment. Don’t feel guilty; we are all in the same boat. We all forget our true nature of pure consciousness.
Resting in pure consciousness is our happy place of equilibrium. All we do now is neutralise the results of karma, the product of previous decisions that we have to live through right now. We do this by no longer exaggerating, being over-stimulated and re-enacting.
Life isn’t a mess to entertain us.
It’s our training ground … or gentle bootcamp!
😀
Spiritually Up-Tight
Up-tight: anxious, angry, tense, and difficult to be with.
Basically, this is fear.
Been there, done that.
😀
Ordinary people are mostly up-tight, but so-called spiritual people are a little more so!
Being up-tight is holding on the rules, while making life hell. Rigidly conventional in manners, unable to express true feelings, unwilling to loosen up and let go are all signs of up-tightness and immaturity. Some express a pseudo-carefreeness, but they’re just being flakey and unreliable 😉 Where there is up-tightness, there is conformity, friction, conflict and … “Do I have to be like that?”
How do we become truly carefree and un-up-tight?
Merely by recognising that we are up-tight and controlling
gives rise to honest, empathetic humour,
manifesting from relaxed confidence.
Where does confidence come from?
From knowing that everyone’s true essence is pure consciousness.
Other people are not the enemy.
Our mind is.
Our mind is also our precious teacher.
You are good.
Finding Our Indigenousness
Our indigenousness has a deep connection
with those who may or may not be alive,
but we have a strong empathy
with their qualities and guidance.
Prostrating To A Pedestal
Pedestal: the base for a statue.
Putting someone on a pedestal: to think of someone as a perfect person with no faults.
In Tibetan Buddhism, we call the teacher ‘Rinpoche’; the precious one. Other traditions give other titles, all of which distance us from the supposed heights of their perfection. When we accept this view, we over-idealise the teacher and see ourselves as insignificant.
Being in awe of decorative paraphernalia, robes and buildings sets us apart. When we indulge in admiration of the facades, the statues, the art … we are looking in the wrong direction.
The bar to perfection is set so high that we ordinary mortals cannot comprehend the wonders of heaven/nirvana, seeing such symbols as meaningful while we are meaningless – or so we think.
This isn’t about insurrection;
it’s about our reality.
If we are adoring a representation rather than realising our true nature,
we have lost the plot.
Don’t devalue your self.
This self is our true teacher.
Are We Fresh Or Frozen?
Fresh is raw experience in this moment.
Frozen is imported baggage imposed on this moment.
We are subject to both, but one will dominate.
Are we a positive person, or do we worry?
Whether we like it or not, it’s obvious that we live in the “age of strife”, so most raw experiences are unpleasant. This is why the real Dharma teachings are so potent; when life is pleasant, we don’t bother.
In the age of strife, evil hasn’t a clue that it can actually wake people up – inadvertently. 😀 It is in this very unpleasantness that we experience the raw deal of life that creates fresh emotions which are, in fact, wisdom. We are never totally negative as our essence is raw, pure consciousness.
Even though there are dark clouds over us, there is always an element of light, an aura, a distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person.
One might think that pleasant situations would wake us up, but do they? From an semi-enlightened point of view (and we are all semi-enlightened :-)), everything is frozen, imported baggage that we think is fresh.
If things are pleasant, we swoon and drift along, overcome with admiration and adoration – “Isn’t my package nice?” In focusing on the pleasant, we try to maintain it but end up freezing it.
If things are unpleasant, our wits sharpen. Having sharpened our wits/consciousness, the pleasant is taken in our stride. We arrive at one taste, bothered neither by the pleasant nor the unpleasant. If we only want the pleasant, we will never be able to deal with the unpleasant – the raw deal.
The raw deal is anything outside our comfort zone.
Frozen Dharma packages charm us into believing that we are awake.
Fresh Dharma is the beautiful rawness of life that awakens.
Better to be awake than to be a clever scholar
😀
Fresh Or Frozen?
Every chef knows that fresh food is juicy and nourishing. They also know that frozen food is dry and, when reheated, becomes even drier and lacks substance. There are those who think, however, that ‘fresh-frozen” is still fresh 😀
Is our knowledge fresh or frozen?
Is it here and now,
or is it a frozen package, bought in from outside?
Reconstituted from frozen isn’t fresh – any chef or practitioner knows this. It is the same with knowledge. Is our knowledge a result of direct experience, or is it borrowed from a book? Is it here and now, or is it something in the past or a projection into the future? When we bring the frozen (from outside) into the fresh (here and now), we may believe that it’s still fresh, but we would be deluded.
Mindfulness is here and now. It’s a fresh, direct experience.
Mindlessness is doing things without thinking them through in a careful way. It contaminates the present moment, and is based on sentimentality.
Sentimentality: exaggerated and self-indulgent tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.
Once someone is fixated about whatever is going on in other places, they can never be right here, right now. This is living through obsessions, rather than being mindful. There are many people consumed by the state of the world, and we may see that they have a point – but not when it clouds whatever is happening right here, right now.
Mindfulness is being practical, dealing with the present moment.
Constantly referring to memories obscures whatever is actually taking place. When someone is always talking about things going on elsewhere, trying to bring them back to a here-and-now reality is like talking to a brick wall.
It is the monkey mind that wanders all over the place.
Only consciousness is in the here and now.
All that we think we know comes from acquisitions embedded in the mind.
The essence of mind is consciousness, pure and simple.
That is right here, right now.
Are We Capable Of Independent Thought?
If so, we are free.
If not, we are mentally imprisoned.
Independence is being free from outside control; not subject to another’s authority or ideas. Words or language are a generalisation of whatever is experienced. Experience is practical contact with an observable event. In that first instant of practical experience – before we comment – is transcendent awareness that has no words.
In the moment of desire is bright awareness.
That bright awareness is consciousness.
The realisation: we have always been consciously free and independent,
but we rely on convention to explain this experience,
and the moment fossilises.
No independent thought, no free speech.
Why Don’t We Talk About How We Really Feel?
We don’t talk about how we really feel because we fear it will open a “can of worms” – the tangled, unpleasant mess that we hide away from others. By putting up with the can of worms, however, we just enable more worms. This exemplifies the Solomon Asch experiment on conformity.
The “can of worms” is our mind; we know that we hold on to all sorts of pretence, and once we have invested in that make-believe, we create a load of trouble for ourselves.
When we can face how we actually do feel, the worms disentangle.
In fact, they never existed.
Meditation is sitting in our can of worms,
watching them disappear.
“Why did I hang on to these worms for so long?”
Do We Know What Normal Is?
Normal: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.
Conforming to whose standard?
Normal is the set standard of a carpenter’s-square to which everyone agrees; 90 degrees is 90 degrees.
Consciousness is a set standard as it applies to everyone.
Space is a set standard of infinity.
These three principles are normal.
When it comes to humans, however, what is normal?
Each of us has different norms – unless we rest in our original state of pure consciousness.
Normal for an busy person is busyness.
Normal for an lazy person is laziness.
Normal for a narcissist is a lack of empathy.
Human normals = our individual quirks that obscure pure consciousness.
Quirk: a peculiar aspect of a person’s character or behaviour.
Seeing The Same Way, Or Seeing More
We (consciousness) look out and see – just see. This is pure seeing. This is pure consciousness. There is nothing exotic; it’s natural. But oh, how we miss this altogether … altogether.
We see, but we miss that first moment of just seeing. Because of that, we begin to relate to whatever we see back to memory, and we superimpose on to the situation. We then judge from these old memories, and react in the same old tired way. That keeps our world ours, and we see no further.
This makes life pretty dull and predictable, and limits our understanding, imprisoning us in the same old assumptions. It’s vertical thinking – we do this and this and this because that’s what we always do.
Lateral thinking is standing back and taking another look, being open to all possibilities. That’s just seeing, without judgements or prejudice.
Seeing afresh is illuminating and inspiring.
Just seeing is Dharma practice.
Anything more exotic is a deviation.
Meditation Stops Us Panicking
If we listen to the news, we will think the world is out of control.
On the other hand, it could be seen as total control
If you can weigh up all possibilities, then you can decide.
Life is stressful for most people, and that culminates in exhaustion.
Exhausted people cannot think straight.
Regardless of what is happening in the world,
we need to find some sense of reality and stability,
rather than hiding away in religion or philosophy.
In the stillness of meditation, we can see what is happening in our mind.
Having seen, we can then either watch our mind continue to panic,
or realise the cause of that panic.
Panic: sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.
From Greek panikos, from the name of the god Pan, noted for causing terror.
Meditation is silent clarity, free of ideas and free of fear.
Goodness know, that can’t be bad.
😀
The Quality Of Consciousness
The quality of consciousness dictates the quality of our life.
Consciousness is clear, bright light – the essence of all beings.
It never changes and is ever pure.
When we actually know this, our view of others changes for the better,
and we become empathetic.
It is due to our fixations that this clear, bright light dims into self-absorption,
and our life becomes dull, not knowing, and not wanting to know.
Why
Because this clear, bright light is uncomfortable – it shows up everything!
Dropping our fixations, our quality of life becomes full of potential.
What Evil Wants
All evil wants is to make us emotional. When we are controlled by our emotions, we lose our sanity and perspective, and we separate ourselves. It’s that simple. It’s that easily done.
The greatest danger for evil is that these very emotions turn out to be wisdoms. In the first instant of an emotion, the mind brightens; that is the light of wisdom, and evil turns away. Unfortunately, we get upset too easily and cling to the emotion. Reacting just becomes a habit, and this is why we have to train the mind not to react.
What Wisdom Wants
To stop being a noisy gong.
To stop being childish.
To stop seeing through a dark glass.
To love unconditionally.
1 Corinthians 13.
Do we do that?
Clear Consciousness = Clear Mind = Clear Conscience
When we feel uncomfortable, or that something isn’t right, that is conscience at work. There is a conflict between consciousness and the mind.
Conscience is the messenger between consciousness and the mind, and the quality of both consciousness and the mind will dictate what conscience comes up with.
Just saying, “I have a conscience”, only means we have a conscience at our level of understanding: there isn’t one conscience about which we will all agree.
What we thought was right or wrong a few years ago may not be the same today. It all depends on our level of experiential understanding of ultimate truth and convenient truth.
Am I Deluding Myself Or …
is my self deluding me?
Deluded = make believe.
My self is a projection of ideas in the mind, and I think that this is what I am.
Who am I really?
I am consciousness, pure and simple. The idea of a self doesn’t like the inconvenient truth that it has no existence: consciousness witnesses this – and that is the muddle we Buddhas are in.
This consciousness cannot be found as it is that which is seeing. If we ever find consciousness, we are deluded. We’ve been caught in this mental trap for so long that we never notice consciousness. We think it’s a thing that we have, but it cannot be found. It’s that idiotic because we don’t know what we are, and so we remain confused and thus, upset.
It is this idiot-self that keeps distracting consciousness. This idiot-self can do and say all sorts of clever things, but it can never know what it is. For this reason, a computer/robot can never be conscious, even though the gods of earth think that it can.
False: Illusory, Not Actually So
A falsity may not be a lie, but just an imitation in order to deceive. This is the world in which we live. Falseness is exaggeration with an ulterior motive of controlling minds, and it is this upon which evil feeds. Starting off as an attraction, we then become dependent, and lose ourselves in falsities. It’s what advertising, gaming, entertainment, news … is all about. 😀
It is only when we know what truth is that we can recognise falsehoods. Until then, we will live in an illusion. Do not give your authority away to a guru-lama-teacher-organisation. For this reason, the Buddha said, “Don’t take my word for it; test it for yourself.”
‘News’ programming starts through suggestion with an ulterior motive. The suggestion then turns into a ‘reality’ because we were ‘prepared’. Read between the lines; ask why something is being said, at that moment. Wars are never clean-cut; always look at the after-effect, the consequences.
When we feel something is not right, that is conscience at work. If we feel uncomfortable, that is conscience at work. Conscience is the messenger between consciousness and the mind, and the quality of consciousness and the mind will dictate what conscience comes up with.
One person’s meat is another’s poison.
Something liked by one person may be distasteful to another.
(The Roman poet and philosopher, Titus Lucretius Carus, coined this expression in the first century BC: “Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum” – What is food for one man may be bitter poison to others.)
Clear consciousness, clear mind = clear conscience,
without any after-effects.
Realising You Have Changed
Even if we are not ‘enlightened’, knowing we’re not stuck in an old behaviour pattern is exhilarating and inspiring. Raw dharma (the practicality of discovering what we actually are) works when we put it to the test again and again. The essence of dharma is knowing our true nature and whatever obscures this.
All we have to do is drop our fixation with the ideas of others
that only led us to confusion and unhappiness.
Realisation of our true nature breaks down the facade and life remains ordinary and without affectation. Realisation merely helps us to live through the residue of old habits that have caused suffering.
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. 