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.

Whatever Is Known Is The Past

Whatever is known is the past.
Knowing is now.

Arrogance is thinking we know.
Wisdom is now.

It’s not what we know;
it’s how we are that matters.

Surrounded By Mara Activity

The news, media, people’s everyday comments … when was the last time you heard something worthwhile? Humans can create beautiful and clever things, but there comes a time in life when we have to make a decision about whether to follow the crowd, or go in another direction. 

When we choose to step out of Mara activity, life changes, and we see things differently. What we saw as trivia now becomes a teaching. 

Mara activity: “Trust me, I know”.
Realising this is a blessing.

What We Say Makes No Difference

What we say makes no difference.
How we are makes the difference.
🙂

Only A Few In Heaven?

What if there are only a few beings in heaven?

So where are the rest?
Here, swapping philosophies. 
🙂

Hell is ignoring heaven, the pure state of mind.

The Path Of No Hardship

Being aware is what we all do, but we are unaware of awareness itself. We are aware of things ‘out there’, and thoughts about things ‘out there’, but we’re rarely aware of awareness. This awareness is what we are.

That’s not difficult to realise, is it? Now, when we sit in silence, just being aware, we notice that there is nothing else. That is pure awareness – pure consciousness. That is what we are. Thoughts may distract us, but all the while, pure consciousness is present.

If, however, we give no value to this reality, then pure consciousness just becomes another fantasy, and we go looking for something more interesting to engage us.

And we are back into conflict and hardship.

Being Inspired

We (consciousness) can be inspired by positivity. At a deeper level, we (consciousness) can also be inspired by negativity. It all depends on our understanding and capacity.

When we’re in exoteric mode – seeker mode – we look for good things to up lift us. 
When we’re in esoteric mode – finder mode – we already know what’s good, and see negative things as a great reminder that the reactions in our mind are merely illusions, acknowledged by the essence of mind – pure consciousness.

Only looking for good things is the trap of clinging. 

Everything is ‘grist for the mill’, meaning it’s potentially useful;
life is a test to see if we are working properly.

‘Grist for the mill’ originates from the practice of farmers taking their grain to the mill to have the miller grind it into flour. 

Life Is A Test

Life is a test to see if we’re working properly.

The test: 
Do we function in clarity, or in pride and fear?

What If We See The World Differently?

Is that anti-social? 

The Buddha saw that life has meaning.

Introverts look inwards; extroverts look out. 
Are introverts anti-social?

We live in confused times.

How Do We Know When We’re Right?

We are the only ones to know rightness, not intellectually, but in actuality. We can’t rely on anyone else to say, “You’re right.” They can only say, “I found that also.” 

The indication of rightness is the gap of clarity. We know rightness in the pause that follows the question, “Am I right?” It is we who have to realise the truth of that empty space, never obtainable from a book. 

Truth which never changes is reading the words. What we then do or say is down to our experience.

Every Experience Points Back To Pure Consciousness

Every experience points back to pure consciousness.
That’s ‘it’.

It isn’t the experience that is ultimate truth;
that which experiences is the ultimate truth.

No Words, No Conflict

Of course, we need a few words to get through life, 
– the same as we need a little ego –
but using words to promote ego only leads to conflict.

Addiction to words = addiction to conflict.

Meditation promotes loving kindness … or it should. 

🙂

Intellectualisation Never Finds Inner Peace

Intellectualisation never finds inner peace, only conflict. We become a type – armchair philosophers dwelling in the fabric of the mind. If we don’t practise and experience, we’re in danger of mixing metaphors. This causes us to flex our mental muscles at others. 

The Buddha said, “Do not take my words for the truth; test them for yourself” for this very reason.

Spread the love, not the words. 🙂

Don’t Assess Your Worth By Others’ Standards

We are all at different stages in the evolution of understanding our true reality. There is no one to impress, as most people are either book-learnt or just follow others.

This is especially so when it comes to ‘spiritual’ groups. We may not feel the same way as them. The hallmark of anyone’s worth is whether they can listen. When we realise that they can’t listen and we don’t mind, we know our worth.

What Does One Do When One Is Right?

That isn’t to say that others are wrong. Things are just right for an individual, and their set of questions. This isn’t ego as we feel confident in the experience of pure awareness, where there is nothing to hold onto. All we know is that pure awareness is always present, and that is what we are. 

So what do we do now? Try to share if we can, and learn from whatever karma brings our way, or doesn’t bring our way. For some of us, nothing much happens. If others aren’t listening, that is their path, and this serves to strengthen our path – if we have empathy.

We cannot expect any conclusion from others; 
peace begins when expectation ends.

Bored And Dissatisfied?

Bored and dissatisfied?
Good.
What is presented as ‘life’ is futile diligence.

Religion ties us up in a neat package,
and we no longer face the rawness of life.
We become lazy.

Reality is direct sensory perception without concepts.

People Like Me Shouldn’t Know

We assume that people who look the part are special, 
and if we believe, we can be special too.

The true route to enlightenment isn’t through belief,
it is realising why we are in
the mess and confusion we are in.

Enlightenment isn’t being special, it’s being ordinary
with no special or distinctive features.

Suddenly it’s glaringly obvious.

Buddha & Mara

We are both Buddha and Mara: clarity and confusion.
Some more, some less.

We dwell in a form and mind in keeping with our levels of realisation and delusion.
Our Mara side thinks it’s here to entertain itself – even the Dharma can be an entertainment. 
Our enlightened side knows it’s here to stabilise realisation – knowing that the Dharma can be an entertainment.

Mara occupies the mind.
The final stage of Mara is endarkenment: an enlightened ego.

Buddha nature is free of mind.
The final stage of realisation is enlightenment: absence of ego.

How Realisation Works

Realisation is an evolving process, while belief is static; it’s at the end before we even start. When we let go of belief, we are in no-man’s-land, and that is the beginning of realising our true potential. 

When we realise the Buddha’s words, “Do not take my words for the truth; test them for yourself”, we are in no-man’s-land, no-word-land. Words are not the actual truth; they are a simulation to give us direction, but they’re not actual experience. If we don’t let go of intellectualisation, we remain in a constant fixture in the mind, rather than in the wisdom of actual liberation, where we don’t fear contact with any situation.

Wisdom is realising that, no matter what happens, pure perception is ever-present, and therefore distractions which obscure pure perception are recognised as illusions. We can now smell Mara at work – the art of deception, with unwitting participants. 

As solitary practitioners, we do not waste time on formal texts or hearsay, as these are incomplete truth. If we want to give more power to this observation … an incomplete truth is a lie. This recognition maintains our path. 

Do we think that enlightenment is a guessing game?

There Is Nothing New

We will never hear anything new about our true reality of pure consciousness; there can only be a new understanding for each individual. We all live in layers of mental fixations and confusion which have to be cut through, and whatever we think is never the answer to achieving satisfaction. 

Mental gymnastics only create more conflict and suffering.

The question of our ultimate reality is a question with no answer, as pure observation is the ultimate answer that clarifies all confusion. It’s the pure observation that is the answer. Frankly, few of us get this as our minds are so indoctrinated with muddled stories that even hearing the truth of our reality can’t get through. All we hear, when people speak, is repeated stories. 

When we see, hear or read something, instead of resting in an open mind, we refer to memories that cloud any further investigation or anything we then hear. This is why most of us cannot see the truth. How often do we say something, and the listener replies, “Oh, I heard it was …” and then go on to quote a story?

Our path is not about repeating this and that, which merely maintains confusion, the hall mark of which is being defensive, and rationalising. Our path is undoing our confusion. 

The truth has always been within.

There is no Buddha out there.
There is no God out there.

We will never find the Buddha out there.
We will never find God out there.

These are illusions that make us look in the opposite direction.

Ultimate reality has always been within,
but is obscured by words and names.

The truth is beyond any words and names.

Interaction Is The Path

The real Dharma is without formalities.
It is pure experience.

Interaction tests our mind.
Is it still reactive?

No progress is made without testing.
Opening up is the process of clarity.

Truth is the natural wisdom of empathy.
Communication is the path.

Dismissing, Or Even Hating The Truth 

“No one is more hated than those who speak the truth.
-Plato

People hate an absolute truth as there is no getting away from it because it cuts through all assumptions. We dismiss the truth of our existence in favour of being entertained by a theory, rather than realising that we are the absolute truth; under the laws of karma, we are responsible for everything that happens to us. 

If we hold onto an idea that the truth is either out there in the universe or in our mind, we will live in an illusion, a fantasy. It is the pure observation of consciousness that is the truth. 

Occam’s razor is the principle that, in an event of two possible explanations, the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct. The more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely the explanation. The problem for believers is all the discussion that goes with belief.

The absolute truth is consciousness for, without that, nothing could be known. Our thoughts are assumptions, but we cannot deny the experience of conscious awareness. 

Pride hates to admit that reality is that simple. 
Pride likes to control.

Continued From Yesterday … 

All people and cultures have their own temperaments. Some are laid back, some are more devotional, and others are wound up. A spiritual practice has to work for the individual to bring them back to balance; one practice does not suit all.

If devotional people are given devotional practices, they will drift along.
If energetic people are given energy practices, they will go crazy.

Practices from the east may not be suitable for students in the west, where people need to understand more than merely repeat.

The Ngondro, which is 4 x 111,111 (or more) repetitions of certain practices in the culture of Tibetan Buddhism, may energise one practitioner, but create pride in another. Making prostrations is one such activity which is supposed to counter pride, but which may actually promote it.

Just ‘going along’ may not be an appropriate path for understanding.

Buddhism And Nationalism

This needs clarification.
Absolute reality is not limited to time and place.

We have to ask the question, is Buddhism being confused with others’ cultures, the same as, for example, confusing Judaism with Zionism? Where does one’s loyalty lie? 

If we become sentimental, and confuse culture with the pursuit of truth, this will have an effect on the quality of our life. 

Confusion about this can fragment our practice.
Ultimate truth is here and now; it is not about ‘then’ and ‘there’.

Religion has two aspects: a state of mind/belief, and a state of consciousness/knowingness. For decades, I wondered, “Why are we doing all this other stuff?” and “Why are so many falling in line with this other stuff?” The other stuff may make us think we’re special, but we’re merely exchanging our habit for another’s. The answer is that all creatures are victims of habit and programming.

We’re here to realise ultimate truth, and then we are released from the confinements of religion and culture.

According to Merriam-Webster: 
“Nationalism is loyalty and devotion to a nation, especially a sense of national consciousness exalting one’s nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations.”

According to The Encyclopedia Britannica:
Nationalism is an ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpasses other individual or group interests.

“Nationalism is a modern movement. Throughout history, people have been attached to their native soil, to the traditions of their parents, and to established territorial authorities, but it was not until the end of the 18th century that nationalism began to be a generally recognised sentiment moulding public and private life and becoming one of the great – if not the greatest – single determining factors of modern history.”

Whatever Happened To Me?

‘Me’ is an idea held in the mind, a conglomeration of adopted concepts and traumas that consciousness believes it is, and which clouds pure perception. This is our guiding darkness. 🙂 Our guiding light, however, is that which sees all these comings and goings in the mind.

So, what happened to ‘me’? Self usually appears when we’re confronted with other people, and the old traumas arise. When we become familiar with this process, the guiding light turns on – the clarity of consciousness. On observation, self disappears. 😀

It is through meditation, analysis and putting the three poisons of desire, aversion and ignorance to the test, that realisation occurs. Every instant is a test – a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something. 

This is taking the Buddha’s advice, ‘Test it for yourself’, to heart.

The word ‘test’ is derived from the Latin testum, which means a small earthen pot. In the past, metal mixtures were tried out by melting them in a special type of earthen container to see whether some purified metal is left.

While we are testing, the ‘me’ is taken out of the picture; that observation comes from pure consciousness. Any conclusion is a reflection of the level of each individual’s practice. 

In the moment of testing, there is no ‘me’ as there is just pure observation.
We don’t have to make consciousness pure; it’s already pure.

We Judge By Our Own Standards

When we judge by our own standards, 
we reveal our state of mind.