Buddhist or Buddha?

What is a Buddhist? What does it mean to 'be' something, to have an identification as this or that? When one is identified with a system of belief, then one is tied to precepts and rituals of an organization that is the embodiment of separation and division. Authority is the outcome of organization. Those who know and those who don't know. One is looking for the gratification of achievement. One seeks acknowledgement through practice and discipline. But whatever is accomplished is self enclosing and only creates suspicion and conflict. As one accumulates knowledge of a practice one only adds to a mind that is already conflicted and confused with many opposing views and beliefs. These accumulations are of the conscious and subconscious mind. Creating an overlay of a new belief with all its rituals and practices, does little to bring one to an understanding of truth. These accumulations are the bondage of the self, the prison of thought. They keep one from having the capacity to realize the truth of the moment. In the moment there is no self, no practice, only that which is the absolute the unknown.


Those in authority create a following around systems of belief and ideals, the practical as well as the esoteric. What they teach seems to point to a way of peace and love. But what is the true motivation of authority? Authority always seeks to sustain a position and with every position there is opposition. This is the conflict and violence of organized religious systems.
Authority becomes the political, that which needs the subservient in order to justify and preserve the continuity of that authority. All authority is corruptible and corrupting.
One may observe this same activity within the self which is its own authority. The ideal becomes one's inner authority. One may observe how this authority creates division inside oneself and is the source of much conflict. Whatever one acquires from the practice of a belief only reinforces the image of self. One is constantly accepting, modifying and rejecting that which is accumulated as a conformity to self image. One can observe how one concludes from this accumulated knowledge and how that one's own authority projects one's inward division outwardly. Because one's life is in a state of opposition, one creates opposition in relationship. One may at once be able to perceive directly, without reference to the known, how that this is a fact of living, that this is ones existence. Direct perception requires a mind that is still, not moving, in the absolute moment. Truth exist only in the moment and mirrors the self. Truth is not found in the affirmation of religious dogma and ritual. But through the negation of self and one's conditioned consciousness which is the source of all division and opposition. When one is totally free then one is a light unto one's self. Perception is direct and not through any authority. For most this is very difficult to accept, because one has been brainwashed and programed since birth to accept images of authority and bow to precepts. Total freedom is insecurity and vulnerability.
It is moving in a totally different direction. It is the new and never before from moment to moment.

One can 'be' a Buddhist or one can realize directly one's Buddha Nature. The illumination of self and the death of all that has been accumulated of "ALL" attachment and identification. One does not 'become' a Buddha, which is only another conditioned attachment. One has the realization that Buddha Nature is a re-creation from moment to moment, it is not a static ideal. One cannot 'know' that one is a Buddha. (past tense/memory). It is a constant, in the moment re-emergence, that is mirrored in relationship. It can never be a symbol of movement or an authority of the conditioned consciousness. It is the unconditioned, the unknown from moment to moment.

If one is totally free then one's mind has the capacity to observe the truth in every word that is spoken or read. When one has negated the authority of self and of all attachment, then all that is mirrors truth. This is Buddha Nature, the unconditioned, the "Yoga" or "Oneness" of non-being, of selflessness.