How To Meditate
We can become caught up in ideas about meditation: sitting in a special posture on a special cushion in a special room, burning special incense …
Meditation is remembering to be aware.
We can do this anywhere, while walking, talking, tasting, smelling, listening …
Once we remember to be aware we drop the remembering.
We have arrived. There is just awareness.
Meditation isn’t a posture.
It’s openness.
To be clear, we meditate to be clear.
🙂
We Can Learn Everything From Everyone
We can learn from everyone, including our self,
because, within every sentient being, there is both goodness and pride.
Pride is our downfall.
Humility is our safety net.
The term ‘humility’ comes from the Latin word humilitas, translated as humble, but also as grounded, from the earth, as it derives from humus (earth).
Compassion, empathy and equanimity cultivate humility, which is expanded by wisdom acquired through the experience of emptiness. When we are just here, there is nothing to defend.
Enlightenment isn’t pie in the sky
– something that’s pleasant to contemplate but unlikely to be realised.
Enlightenment is our natural clarity, without the usual opinions.
Opposites Are A Unity
Mara activity wants us to think there are two sides which divide us. You can fool most of the people most of the time, but not all the people all the time.
Left/right, up/down, light/dark, heaven/hell, beneficial/harmful … each supports the other.
Mara is the demonic aspect of our mind, which is self-obsession without regard for others. This type of activity is more evident in some people. When we are aware of Mara, it becomes our teacher, and we can sense when a person likes to wind us up, talk over us, try to control us …
A smile of recognition is all that is needed.
🙂
Our Eyes Do Not Lie
!
Our eyes do not lie.
Neither do our ears, tongue, nose, skin.
It’s our interpretation and bias that changes what we see.
Our reality is pure perception,
but our perception can become skew-whiff (not straight).
🙂
Interested But Not Attached
With the realisation of our true reality of pure awareness, we see directly, but respond differently from the way we responded before. We now see the cause behind the cause, and don’t become excited, hyped-up or worried.
Let’s say there’s a conflict in part of the world. There are two sides and, on each side, there are extremists. Outside this conflict, there are more extremists with their opinions.
The situation does not need our opinion – just observation. Others may want us to become involved so that they can argue for one side or the other. In truth, there aren’t two (or more) sides; there is just the usual conflict of perception, with each person trying to prove themselves right, while behind the scenes are the instigators with one mind – the ‘slow hand of control’.
It’s interesting to recognise the cause of suffering, but not suffer. This doesn’t mean we don’t care; we see one continuous cause of suffering – group-aggrandisement, which is an act undertaken to increase power and influence.
No One Can Tell Us How To Think
No one can tell us how to think.
But they do.
When we are in a group – be it family, friends, work, religion – we are all expected to think the same way to maintain groupthink. If we don’t, we’re cancelled – they don’t like us.
Once we realise the essence and nature of mind, no one can tell us how to think or what to think.
The essence of mind is pure consciousness, the direct clarity of perception.
The nature of mind is the thoughts developed through experience, whether they’re pleasant or unpleasant:
The unenlightened think inside the mind.
The enlightened think outside the mind.
How do we think outside the mind?
When a red car goes by, we don’t have to think,
“There’s a red car!”
We already know it.
In the same way, when we meet people,
we don’t have to think about them.
We already know instinctively what not to say.
🙂
Sensing Things Are Not Right
We all have this intuitive feeling – why?
It’s because we aren’t acting normally, naturally, contentedly. We’ve learnt to act to protect ourselves, but we don’t know what this self is. The ideas we’ve acquired don’t add up, so we become fearful.
Between Thoughts
We are the silent reality between thoughts,
ever-present pure consciousness.
To train in perceiving in this way is Dharma practice.
Thoughts aren’t the problem; it’s attachment to those thoughts that keeps us captured in a vicious cycle of existence, causing suffering.
The more we train and investigate, the wider the gap between thoughts becomes; the longer the duration, the happier we are, the freer we are, the wiser we are, the more natural we are, the more compassionate we are.
There’s a lot going on between thoughts.
🙂
Is Consciousness In The Brain Or Ever-Present Everywhere?
Scientists treat consciousness as an evolutionary by-product of neural wiring; that is to say, matter produces mind. Through observation, the brain and body – with all their instincts and drives – are illumined by consciousness, the very ground of reality. If we believe we’re a product, we stay a product – and people buy and sell products.
We can either dance around to others’ explanations, or see that the brain is a tool and the mind a filter through which ever-present consciousness expresses itself.
We have a choice whether to be a by-product,
or the ultimate intuitive authority.
Tradition
A tradition is a transmission of customs or beliefs
passed on from generation to generation.
It is only when we get older
that we see the pattern of customs and beliefs change.
Who sets the trends, and why?
Those who make us feel that information is up-to-date,
when it’s actually the same old patterning.
Tradition: Programming
Our societies are made up of traditions that programme our behaviour in certain ways. But behind this facade is a deeper programming, where we are encouraged to argue, blame, complain and mentally engage in trying-to-put-things-right. That is part of the programming which keeps us attached to ‘our’ tradition, and entertained.
Entertain: Latin inter ‘among’ + tenere ‘to hold’. The word originally meant ‘maintain, continue’.
Traditions are created or manoeuvred to control a population’s behaviour. People come into power, make a law and withdraw, leaving the new law in place. This law gets us worked up and divided – job done. We cannot change this process as its been going on for a very long time.
We can only put our self right, through direct perception. This is the purpose of meditation; resting in silent awareness, and realising we are this clarity of awareness, pure and simple.
When we are consumed by our ancestry,
we limit and delay our path to enlightenment,
which is free of all attachments.
Oblivious To Reality
Oblivion: from Latin oblivio(n-), from oblivisci ‘forget’.
It’s totally shocking that few know their reason to be.
What’s that?
To know we are not just this body and mind but consciousness.
What we do with this body and mind is down to our particular karma.
Some people’s lives are all bells and whistles,
some people’s live is trauma,
some ordinary, nothing special.
Our true reality is the clarity of pure consciousness,
but are oblivious to this.
Mara: “The Show Must Go On … And On … ”
All the world is a stage,
and all the men and women are merely players.
We learn a script, and then play it out unto death,
and Mara sees to it that things stay that way.
Realisation is dropping the script,
and stepping out of the theatre into the fresh air.
Unfortunately, the enthralled and enslaved remain, to be entertained.
We Are Caught On A Roundabout
It’s the far left that creates the far right,
and the far right that creates the far left.
In the middle is their unwitting supply of sustenance.
The Dharma is Understanding Mara Activity (Evil)
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
Conventional suggests that “Better the devil you know” is something we can put up with it. That is not the meaning here. “Better the devil you know” means that we are prepared.)
If we cannot recognise Mara activity – “Trust me” – we are just a rudderless ship of fools. Mara lies in ambush at every moment when we are absent-minded or distracted. It is active when we cling to ideas and the senses for satisfaction.
When people profess to be ‘good’ and say that we should trust them, this is Mara activity. Good people have theoretical compassion for those afar, but never have time or the ability to connect with whatever’s in front of them. On the other hand, Mara does, by making us competitive.
Mara exaggerates everything. We encounter this every day, and we join in, becoming captivated. Evil can be trusted as it cannot stop itself, and it’s therefore predictable. It’s more difficult to trust ‘good’ people as they put on an act until they are enlightened.
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
😀
We can have empathy for those who suffer,
and compassion for those who are ‘happy’.
🙂
Fashioned to Fail
Each generation is encouraged to complain and rebel against the previous generation that was also fashioned to rebel, so there is a lack of continuity. This maintains chaos, confusion and suffering, which most people ignore; we unconsciously adapt without noticing that we’ve been ‘got at’ and influenced to self-censor by being made to feel wrong.
Thus, the minority prevails over the majority, not realising that each generation is fashioned or shaped by unseen hands. 🙂
Creating an imbalance in society reduces people into being ‘alarmed and distressed”. If we point out these disparities, we can be arrested which, in itself, is alarming and distressing. This is how the world is controlled – believe what we say, or be punished.
We must take control of our minds and not react,
as reactions will be used against us.
Weak people create confusion,
but recognising confusion creates the path to enlightenment.
A Great Mind Or A Wise Mind?
The essence of mind is ethereal pure consciousness without thoughts. When pure consciousness forgets its essence, it clings to thoughts, which creates the characteristic of a self. Consciousness then becomes materialistic.
People admire someone with a ‘great’ mind who invents things or who has skills. When a ‘great’ person dies, people talk about their achievements, rather than whether they realised the truth of being.
Blindly, we try to emulate these ‘great’ minds, and even want to be recognised for admiring them. This a psychological trap of intellectualisation – the world is ruled by clever inventions, after all.
The formulations in the mind can invent beneficial or harmful things, but what is beneficial to one may be harmful to another, as in splitting the atom, adding sugar to food, believing words to be truth ….
Realising the essence of mind of empty cognisance is wisdom,
where nothing is created but by which everything is known.
Wisdom knows.
Great minds know about.
The Same Old Dharma
Dharma is our original reality of pure consciousness. As long as there are sentient beings, there is Dharma. It is timeless, before any books are written. It’s like maths; it wasn’t invented, it was discovered, and then applied for good or evil.
There are many traditions that create forms and vehicles. The traveller has to discover and decide which path to take to the destination of enlightenment.
The journey starts with recognising the confusion that causes us suffering.
Our path is undoing our confusion.
The Undeniable Truth
Truth about a situation is a personal preference,
but the truth about the first instant of awareness
is the same for everyone.
There Is No Stopping Truth
Evil spends its time misdirecting our minds. Once we’re aware of this activity, evil has to move on. Unfortunately, as long as there is a self in the mind, that mind can be manipulated.
Fortunately: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln
Unfortunately: “A fool contributes nothing worth hearing, and takes offence at everything.” – Aristotle
Evil observes all sentient beings, collecting data to see our weaknesses in order to misdirect us or give us more of the same.
When this is realised, we are more alert, and thus evil becomes our teacher. That’s why evil can never completely succeed.
The Teacher-Of-All-Phenomena
A human teacher can only help us to recognise and then realise the teacher-of-all-phenomena: that every encounter, and every thought, and every interaction with others is a teaching, by showing us the habitual reactions that cause us suffering. The realisation that we are clinging to any experience is the Dharma in action, which eliminates the suffering of mental anguish.
Before this, teachings are just theories.
Whatever we encounter is due to our past, so every situation is karmic; it’s the result of previous reactions, and is our personal path to enlightenment. Ignoring this recognition is our path to maintaining endarkenment.
It’s not necessary to present the teachings in a religious fashion.
The teachers and the temples won’t always be there.
Always remember that people cannot tell the truth – not even the Buddha.
The truth is the verification through pure experience.
Life Is About Remembering
Life is about remembering what we are, which is pure consciousness, rather than a mind spending its life being entertained and forgetting its true nature. Forgetting is Mara activity. We all need something that reminds us to be aware of being pure consciousness.
Unfortunately, we don’t value just being aware; we want something more interesting. This is Mara activity, and it’s why the practice of meditation is important to slow our life down to appreciate the simplicity of life, rather than trying to impress the impressionable.
Slowing down merely means paying attention, focusing, seeing clearly what is necessary and what isn’t. In this way, we find satisfaction.
Being aware of the breath, our bum on the seat, a word, can make us stop for a moment where we come to our senses. It’s not the breath, bum or word that’s important; it is the awareness of the breath, bum or word that is our reality of pure consciousness.
At the end of life, our achievements are meaningless.
Remembering that we are pure consciousness is meaningful.
Remember: don’t forget.
Freeing A Limited Mind
Whenever we adopt ideas, this limits the mind’s full potential. The essence of mind is fully aware, pure, empty consciousness – it’s what we originally are, without opinions.
This mind we call ‘me’ is a complexity of ideas – our imagination – and this is our path to enlightenment. Our ideas create confusion, fear, attachment, pride … and recognition of these are our stepping stones to freedom. We still have to deal with our karmic attitude, but gradually we find that we smile at any criticism aimed at us. Then we know that change has occurred.
Everything that we learn is an illusion Every method is a relative teaching; however profound, it isn’t our reality. Our reality is the experience of pure consciousness – pure perception without reaction.
Observing the mind at work is purification. Chanting doesn’t do this, and neither does too much questioning and analysis as these oppose natural experience. In this way, we overcome the illusion we’re in.
Consciousness has to to reverse attachments/desires which cause us to lose control and suffer. The enlightened approach to life is to eliminate suffering through the right frame of mind, which is a clear frame of mind.
We wish to be like a Buddha, free of extremes.
Why Do We Like To Believe?
Remember: belief is acceptance without evidence, which is mistaken for knowing. When we actually know, we no longer have to believe. Proof isn’t written down in a book; proof is personal experience. That is the authority.
We believe because as that doesn’t require us to use much intelligence; we rely on others, because others rely on others. We cannot even trust the Buddha as he said, “Do not take my words for the truth; test them”.
We doubt, and so we rely on the past. We’re told stories which have a greater impact on our lives than the present moment of experiencing pure awareness. This is living in an ancestral illusion that binds us. Belief is simply entrapment in a system.
In pure awareness, we are open to all views, so when a situation arises, we don’t jump to our habitual conclusions. Being aware of what karma brings up is our path, whether we ascend or not (karma is the situation and our response to that situation). In belief, we go nowhere, remaining in purgatory.
It is knowing that is satisfying and fulfilling.
The Dharma Isn’t Working 🙂
Buddhism is the religion. It’s about precepts, bells, chanting, texts, meditation … the maintenance of form which is a precursor to the Dharma. If we like following precepts, chanting, ringing bells, studying, meditating, that’s okay – but we are doing something that occupies consciousness.
The Dharma – which can never be destroyed and so is timeless – is ever-present pure consciousness where we do nothing but be aware … the essence of being. It is the completion stage of practice – or it should be. But doing something can become more important than silent awareness where true compassion lies.
The essence of meditation is noticing attachment and dropping it. That is the work, but we aren’t doing anything. Our attachment to the things that come our way is our path to enlightenment, observing without following or reacting.
In Buddhism, we can argue about this or that approach,
but in the Dharma of pure consciousness,
there can be no disagreement.
Let go.
We Are Born Infidels – Non-Believers
We are born without belief; we are just aware, playing with our toes. We’re then indoctrinated into beliefs about life in one form or another, and those beliefs become more important than original awareness or pure consciousness – and playing with our toes. 🙂
Belief is a man-made game with man-made rules of acceptance without evidence. If we don’t believe, we’re called infidels. Doesn’t that sound crazy?
Infidels are non-believers, so are Buddhists infidels?
Buddhism isn’t about belief. It is supposed to be the psychological evaluation of a mind which has adopted ideas that make us crazy. Buddhism should cultivate an ethical and realistic frame of mind in order to refrain from false ideas that create harmful speech.
Pure consciousness is the infidel of our mind
– the observation of all things.
We are all original infidels,
when we are in our right mind.
Simple, But Not Easy
Our true reality is so simple; we see, hear, smell, taste, touch without comment, experiencing pure awareness and, through meditation, realise that we are this pure awareness. Meditation is the silent method to observe.
Once we are purely aware, we drop the meditation and just be. That is pure consciousness with no self-identity present. Simple.
It’s not easy, because we habitually claim the seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching with comments, and find it all very interesting. Pure awareness becomes forgotten; we think we are interesting, and consciousness immerses itself heavily into a self-identity. 🙂
It’s a Mara-run world, controlling our minds by encouraging us to react, feeding off our emotions. We have distractions – ‘news-entertainment’ – thrown at us daily, purely because there’s a risk that we can wake up in an instant.
Once we are awake to our reality,
we can detect any “disturbance in the force/emptiness”.
😀
Living In A System
We live in a system
We believe in the system and die in the system.
The set up.
System: from Greek sustēma, from sun ‘with’ + histanai ‘set up’.
Even if we join another group, religion or culture – and it doesn’t matter what it’s called – it’s still a system.
The system is made up of words and gestures/performance. We are brought up in the system, and this is how we learn to conform and be ‘happy’ in our servitude until we realise its limitations. 🙂 The system has no reality.
The question to ask is how we escape.
As long as we all argue in words, we are bound to the system through our emotions of likes, dislikes, pride, jealousy, indifference … We have to boldly go beyond the words and gestures. Unfortunately, when we do, this we upset the set up – and people don’t like it. Authorities don’t like it. We can lose friends and family.
When we stop reacting, we stop performing, and the show can’t go on. 🙂
Living outside the system is living in silent awareness. We don’t give opinions or take sides; we just get on with the work in hand – chopping wood, fetching water …
The essence of silent awareness is pure consciousness.
This is our reality.
It’s outside the system.
😀
Knowing Our Problem Is Solving Our Problem
We need to defend ourselves against both manipulation and the resulting reaction in our mind that makes the manipulation seem more real. How do we do that? By noting whether anyone is suggesting or demanding that we change our thinking to suit their way of thinking. This includes everyone as we’re all part of a system. 🙂
Real Dharma isn’t about not thinking; it’s about being aware – being conscious of those thoughts and their effect in our mind which causes us to live a sanitised life of groupthink.
Sanitised: make something more palatable by removing elements that are likely to be unacceptable or controversial.
Being in a group, where we use sanitised language that seeks to clean up the appearance of events through euphemism, and abstract words or phrases, doesn’t mean we’re safe and protected. Euphemism is the art of war, when we just follow a narrative – a story of one side or the other.
It’s not a matter of agreeing;
it’s a matter of seeing.
Life is then never the same again.
Looking For Secrets?
If we are looking for secrets, we have been misled.
In looking for the ‘good stuff’, we will miss the actual good stuff. The good stuff is in personal realisation and not in others’ words – those are secondhand.
Whatever is written down is not the truth, whether the words are Togyal, Trekcho, Dharmakaya, Dzogchen, Self, Turiya, Zen, Dao, God, someone’s name …
The absolute truth is the pure consciousness that sees the words and the world around us. That pure seeing is the truth, the obvious secret. We are ethereal pure spirit of consciousness – pure awareness. It cannot be controlled, but only distracted with our consent.
The real shortcut to our reality is in direct experience … just seeing … but that sounds too ordinary so we overlook it.
This is how we’re misled, hoodwinked, deceived, and confused.
It is not “Seek and ye shall find”
(a subtle misdirection).
It is the seeing.
We are ordinary;
we’re without special or distinctive features;
we’re not interesting or exceptional;
we’re commonplace.
There is a sanctity about pure consciousness as something of ultimate importance to be preserved but, if we make more out of it, it becomes a material fascination – which is another subtle misdirection.
Billions And Billions And Billions
Billions and billions and billions of sentient beings have passed through Earth, never realising their true reality of pure consciousness. Actually, make that zillions and zillions and zillions … All these beings have done is either accept others’ beliefs, or survive by not being eaten. 🙂
Even hearing or reading about our true reality is rare.
It’s even rarer that anyone realises this.
So if you’re here, celebrate!
It’s significant and synchronistic.
Meditation: Returning Home
Meditation is returning to our original state of silent awareness.
Once rejuvenated in clarity,
we go about our day as a silent witness,
with less chatter and bias.
A Change In Intelligence
When I was young, I hadn’t a clue about life – but it seemed that everyone else did! I joined many spiritual groups to try to find what the truth of life was, apart from creationism and evolutionism.
I started on a path called the Fourth Way, which I followed for nine years, and was threatened with being asked to leave for not conforming. After that, I followed a Bengali guru for five years, and he kicked me out twice. The Tibetan Buddhist teacher with whom I studied and practised for eleven years also expelled me. Obviously, I had a problem in conforming and acting a part …
After going to Nepal in search of teachings, I found other Tibetan lamas, and realised that they all have their own ways. I stayed with the Nyingma tradition for some time, but I don’t really get on with the form and adoration. The other students all appear to ‘know’, but that was just an acquisition of words.
You can’t talk about a group to the group members, so about twelve years ago, I stopped going on retreats, listening to lectures and reading books, which are all very expensive.
Then it happened. Perhaps it was an assimilation of all the past experiences? I no longer relied on teachers and their students (artificial intelligence 🙂 ), and took the Buddha’s words, “Don’t take my words for the truth; test them for yourself” to heart. All words are tainted.
It took a couple of years to be able to learn to express what is experienced. Looking back on life, it has been one long trauma after another, following people who merely believed, rather than showing any genuine intelligent compassion. I understood what made them that way … belief in words.
I no longer look back in anger, just empathy. Been there, believed that, hoped mantras would work like a lucky charm. I’ve since discovered that it’s all much simpler.
True intelligence isn’t IQ, it’s EQ – emotional intelligence (emotional quotient) – which is the ability to understand and manage our own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, and overcome challenges and conflict.
ie to be able to control ourself before others do it for us.
What’s Heaven/Nirvana Like?
Well, it’s corrupt 🙂 There are officials and inner circles who don’t like people.There are no angels or Dakinis – just queues for everything, and it’s all expensive. The tap drips and we have to mow the lawn.
The only difference is that it’s all transparent.
Not physically, but we see through the games.
🙂
If your Heaven/Nirvana is better,
please let us know.
The Importance Of Realising Infinity
We cannot get our heads around infinity; it’s something we can’t think about as it goes on and on – just like our minds. Earth is a minute speck of dust, and we are specks on that dust. We assume that we are the centre of the universe, but this is a deluded concept.
It is because we cannot comprehend infinity as it’s beyond the capability of the thinking mind that we made up – or had made up for us – a ‘creator’.
If we think we aren’t infinite, life is just survival,
and nothing that we do has any significance.
Pure consciousness is one with infinity,
because pure consciousness is infinite.
Everybody’s Talking About ‘Me’
Everybody’s talking about ‘me’;
they never listen to a word I’m saying
– they only hear echoes in their mind.
Sound familiar?
🙂
It’s Nice To Communicate
It’s nice to communicate, but fear gets in the way.
If we don’t dare, we can never succeed.
Communication isn’t about ‘me’ or what I’ve read; it’s about what’s experienced.
Communication: from Latin communicatio(n-), from the verb communicare ‘to share’.
Communication isn’t about what others have said.
Communication is empathy.
Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Altruism Without Egoism Is Tricky
Until enlightenment, there will be a little ego to be sociable.
We have a social I.
Confronting an obsessive ego is tricky as obsessiveness is Mara activity. Altruism has to be skilful, being aware of people’s games.
In the first instant of an encounter, we neutralise obstructing spirits by not reacting, thus offering an open atmosphere.
What we do then in life is down to our level of perception.
Thinking The Unthinkable
We are created by devilry.
We are devilry’s minions.
There is no actual demonic deity; it’s just the likes and dislikes encoded in our minds that control our behaviour. That’s the devilry at work.
It’s sort of Gnosticism,
where beings are trapped the material world
until they regain divine knowledge.
It’s because we are ignorant of our true reality – pure consciousness – that we became diverted into the creation of demonic minds. We only have to look at world history to see that there has been conflict for thousands of years. The history of the world is a history of wars.
If we were created by a loving deity, shouldn’t we love one another? We don’t. We argue about putting things right, while the blind lead the blind and the devil laughs.
When we think the unthinkable,
everything makes sense.
Looking For Happiness
The real thing.
First, we have to know what happiness is. Is it a temporary or permanent state?
Our view of happiness is cock-eyed. A temporary state is exciting but it does not last; it isn’t happiness, it’s a dopamine rush to which we’ve become addicted. This is what sends humanity round in circles of madness, led by the nose for the next fix.
But what of the permanent state?
It’s not what we think; it is the realisation of ever-present pure being. It’s not a happiness that is commonly recognised as we’re so used to ‘interesting’ happiness which is associated with conditions such as family, job, hobbies and general chit-chat. These are all pass-times to wile away our life.
Pure being is pure consciousness.
It’s unshakeable confidence.
That is happiness.
We Don’t Realise The Problem
Psychopathic entities without empathy confuse the minds of people by presenting opposites, creating those ‘for’ and those ‘against’. It is because we are unaware of this insidious activity that we experience stress.
In each generation,
cultures are fashioned to maintain instability.
Do I Have To Meditate?
The effect of meditation is to realise that we are pure awareness. Once we live this understanding, then no, we don’t have to meditate. But we cannot assume in some vague way that we are aware; we have to know and recognise the mechanics of the mind, and how it has been infiltrated with ideas. A deluded mind is always referring to memories.
We should meditate twice a day,
just to ensure that
we aren’t living in a set of lofty ideas.
🙂
Meditation Is Being Natural
Meditation isn’t just sitting on a cushion;
it is awareness, any time, any where.
When we drop our opinions and appreciations,
we become a nobody – nothing ‘special’.
🙂
Awareness is actually pure awareness.
That’s what we are.
It is because the mind is now clear of ‘special’
that insight can occur.
The desire to feel ‘special’ is Mara activity.
What Can We Rely On?
All phenomena, including thoughts, are temporary events, and therefore have absolutely no reality. We can’t even rely on words as they’re either interpretations of someone else’s experiences, or repetitions of someone else’s translation.
Everything passes as in a dream, a memory, an illusion of reality. We never stop to wonder whether things are true; we just follow others’ say-so. Whenever anyone speaks, they’re talking from their own personal dungeon of existence, and we use up our lives following others’ social, religious and political ideologies.
There is only one reality, and it’s not what we think. It’s something we all have in common, and that’s consciousness. On rare occasions, we may meet in pure consciousness, in an instant ofsilent recognition.
Through ignorance of this experience, however, we revert to memories as we’re unfamiliar with that pure moment, and can feel uncomfortable.
The recognition of this ignorance is the birth of compassion,
and reveals the purpose of life.
We Are Set Up For A Fall
We are told to accept a minority’s fantasies;
the majority react, and are punished.
This is communism, where the minority takes control.
In any organisation,
there is an inner group that controls the majority.
How?
People aren’t seeing.
hey just look.
We have to be aware of the effects of manipulation.
Simple meditation clears the mind to allow us just to see.
Any Questions?
Questions can result in conflict,
but that is how we make progress.
We don’t make progress by mere acceptance of an answer.
When we question, we look at our reaction,
rather than the reply.
It is how we react that tell us the truth.
All that matters is awareness watching the mind at work.
Beyond Words
Our reality is ethereal consciousness, the pure wisdom essence of mind.
It is live space beyond clever words.
Unfortunately, we become attached to circling concepts and words.
This causes confusion and conflict that results in a dead, dull echo chamber.
Echo chamber: an environment where we only encounter information or opinions that reflect and reinforce our own concepts and words.
Once we understand our own psychology, we become alive.
Unwittingly Clinging To Words And Rituals
Unwittingly clinging to words and rituals for good luck is easily done. Words and rituals are reminders, but if we don’t let go, we remain in intellectualisation and belief. The more we realise, the more those insidious thoughts are seen, as our likes and dislikes lie in ambush.
Insidious: from Latin insidiosus ‘cunning’, from insidiae ‘an ambush or trick’, from insidere ‘lie in wait for’.
Letting go is the completion stage of any practice.
The Creation Of Anger
There are many avenues available for Mara (demonic minds) which cause us to react, and feel angry. This is what narcissistic minds feed off, gaining satisfaction from our reactions. The daily algorithms are constantly supplying us with emotions – sometimes fear, sometimes hope, and sometimes anger – and we love this excitement.
Anger whips us up into a frenzy, and demonic minds can use this to further their interests.
When we recognise this state of affairs and stop playing Mara’s games, Mara has to move on. Mara is an integral part of humanity, so it’s not going away …
The practice of meditation
is not reacting or being bound;
this sets us free.
That is meditation in action.
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. 