The Almost Enlightened One — Upa-Buddha Suttas with Commentary
The Almost Enlightened One
Being the Collected Suttas, Jātaka Tales, and Modern Encounters of Upa-Buddha, the Tathāgata's Cousin
with Commentary by Bob Harrison
Dhamma Teacher, Bodhi Tree Dharma Center
Practitioner of Muddynupassanā, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
A Note Before We Begin
These texts were not lost. That would imply they were once found. They were more in the nature of texts that never quite made it into the mainstream canon for reasons that will become obvious approximately three paragraphs in.
The Upa-Buddha Cycle — comprising the suttas, the Jātaka tales, the Vinaya-adjacent commentary, and several modern encounters that appear to be continuing the tradition in real time — came to my attention gradually. Not through scholarly discovery. More through the accumulation of evidence that the universe has a particular sense of humor, and that I appear to have been cast in a supporting role.
A note on method: Gil Fronsdal, whose translations and commentaries I admire enormously, approaches the Pāli texts with care, precision, and the kind of quiet authority that comes from decades of practice. This is not that. This is something adjacent to that. Upa-Buddha adjacent, one might say. The Dhamma is real. The humor is real. The mud is very real. The texts themselves are recently discovered in the sense that we are discovering them right now, together, which I think is actually consistent with the oral tradition.
Each section presents the text — sutta, Jātaka, or narrative — followed by my commentary. The commentary reflects genuine practice, genuine experience, and a genuine commitment to not taking any of this more seriously than it deserves, which turns out to be exactly as seriously as it deserves.
Before enlightenment: mud puddles. After enlightenment: mud puddles.
— Bob Harrison, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
Part One: The Suttas
The Upa-Buddha Arrives
The Text
Thus have I heard. On one occasion, the Blessed One was dwelling in the Jeta Grove near Sāvatthī. At that time, a figure was seen approaching along the forest path. A murmur moved through the small gathering of monks.
"Ah… the Tathāgata's cousin."
Upa-Buddha, hearing this, attempted a dignified nod — the kind he had practiced in front of a polished brass bowl. Instead, he let out a startled little "eep!" as his sandal caught on absolutely nothing.
He pinwheeled. He flailed. He made a noise no enlightened being has ever made.
And then — with the inevitability of karma ripening — he slipped directly into a mud puddle that absolutely did not exist a moment ago.
A full-body splash. Robes ruined. Dignity evaporated. A frog hopped away, offended.
The monks stared.
One finally murmured: "Truly, he walks the Middle Way… between grace and catastrophe."
Upa-Buddha stood, dripping, trying to salvage the moment.
"This too is impermanent."
"And very squishy."
Commentary
The thing about this text that strikes me every time is the mud puddle that "did not exist a moment ago." This is not careless writing. This is precise Buddhist cosmology. Conditions arise. Mud puddles are conditioned phenomena. They arise when conditions are present for their arising — which, in Upa-Buddha's case, appears to require only that he be walking upright in a public place with some aspiration toward dignity.
The line "Truly, he walks the Middle Way… between grace and catastrophe" is, I think, the most accurate description of lay practice I have ever encountered. We are all walking that middle way. Most of us just don't have a monk narrating it.
"This too is impermanent. And very squishy." I want this on the wall of every meditation center I have ever taught in. It is a complete Dhamma teaching in eight words. The first sentence is correct. The second sentence is what makes it honest.
The Sutta of the Pond Enterer
The Text
Thus have I heard. After the incident of the mud puddle — and the second incident, and the third incident which early commentators describe as "technically a ditch" — the Upa-Buddha, robe-less for reasons recounted in the Sutta of the Vanishing Robes, accepted a fresh set of robes from a young girl who offered them with the simple, unselfconscious generosity that makes devas weep.
He donned the robes. They fit surprisingly well. He straightened. He breathed. He felt, for one brief shining moment, like a man who might yet walk the path with dignity.
He took one step.
And slipped directly into the same mud puddle.
A karmic encore. A cosmic callback. The crowd gasped. The frog, now perched on a nearby rock, looked bored.
Upa-Buddha rose, dripping once more. He looked at the puddle. He looked at the pond. He looked at the sky.
Then, with the weary resolve of a man who has accepted his role in the universe, he walked to the pond, paused at the edge, sighed, and jumped in.
PLOP.
Ripples spread in perfect concentric circles. A cow lowed somewhere in the distance.
A monk whispered, awestruck: "Truly, he has entered the stream."
A beat.
Another monk, without missing a breath: "Pond. Pond enterer."
A third monk nodded solemnly, as if this clarified everything.
Upa-Buddha, still chest-deep in water: "I liked the first version better."
The frog croaked in disagreement.
Commentary
The stream-entry joke lands for anyone who has spent time with the Pāli texts, and I want to be clear that it is not a dismissal of stream-entry. Stream-entry — the first stage of awakening, the irreversible entering of the path — is a real thing, a profound thing, a thing the tradition treats with enormous care.
Which is exactly why "Pond. Pond enterer." is so perfect. The form is right. The content is honest. Upa-Buddha has not entered the noble stream. He has entered a pond in Jeta Grove because he jumped in it. And the monk who says "Pond enterer" is not being mean. He is being precise. He is doing exactly what the tradition trains us to do: see clearly, name accurately, and resist the pull toward wishful interpretation.
The frog's disagreement at the end is the frog's only moment of theological opinion in the entire cycle. I take it to mean the frog thinks "Pond enterer" is still too generous.
The Sutta of the Vanishing Robes
The Text
Thus have I heard. The Upa-Buddha stood dripping, mud-soaked, trying to salvage a shred of dignity. The small crowd murmured with the kind of sympathy usually reserved for a child who has dropped his lunch.
Then — from among them — a young man stepped forward with exaggerated solemnity. He bowed deeply.
"Upa-Buddha, cousin of the Enlightened One — please allow me to take and cleanse your robes."
Upa-Buddha brightened. Finally — a moment of respect. A chance to restore his dignity.
He slipped out of the mud-heavy robes and handed them over with a gracious nod.
"Thank you for your generosity."
The young man bowed again. Turned. Walked away.
And kept walking.
And kept walking.
And disappeared over the hill.
The crowd watched in silence.
A monk cleared his throat. Another murmured: "Perhaps he has gone to fetch water." A third replied: "Perhaps he has gone to fetch a new life."
Upa-Buddha stood in his undergarments, shivering, staring at the horizon where his robes — and his last shred of dignity — had vanished. Finally he said, very softly:
"Well… that was unexpected."
A frog croaked in agreement.
Commentary
The early texts are full of stories about generosity — dāna — and they are almost uniformly presented as unambiguously good. Someone gives. Someone receives. Merit is made. The universe is pleased.
This text complicates that a little. The young man's offer is genuine in its form. "Please allow me to take and cleanse your robes" is a perfectly correct offering, the kind of service any lay supporter might offer a monk. The problem is entirely in the execution, which is to say the non-execution, which is to say the young man's apparent decision that taking the robes was enough of the project.
The crowd's two interpretations are both charitable and both wrong. "He has gone to fetch water" is optimistic. "He has gone to fetch a new life" is my favorite line in the Sutta of the Vanishing Robes because it is both absurd and possibly the most Dhamma-accurate thing anyone says in the whole text. We are, all of us, looking for a new life. The young man just happened to be using Upa-Buddha's robes as a vehicle.
What I find genuinely moving here — and I want to be clear that these texts move me as well as amuse me — is Upa-Buddha's response. Not rage. Not shame. Just: "Well… that was unexpected." He is surprised. He names his surprise. And then he stands there, apparently willing to be surprised again tomorrow.
That is a very advanced practice.
The Sutta of Māra's Mild Confusion
The Text
Thus have I heard. Upa-Buddha stood shivering, mud-streaked, robe-less, dignity hanging by a thread thinner than a lotus fiber.
Then — a faint shimmer in the air. A chill. A dramatic gust of wind that absolutely no one asked for.
Māra, the Evil One, Lord of Illusion, King of Temptation, Master of Psychological Warfare, materialized in a swirl of smoke and theatrical lighting. He raised his staff. He began the ancient chant of delusion. The sky darkened. The earth trembled. The frogs looked mildly annoyed.
Then Māra paused. Squinted. Leaned forward. Tilted his head.
"…Upa-Buddha?"
Upa-Buddha gave a tiny wave.
Māra lowered his staff. The sky brightened. The wind stopped. A coconut fell off a tree in disappointment.
Māra cleared his throat.
"Sorry. Wrong cousin. Do you know where He is?"
Upa-Buddha, still dripping mud, pointed vaguely down the path.
"Probably teaching under a tree somewhere."
Māra nodded, relieved. "Right. Right. Thank you. Carry on." He vanished in a puff of smoke that smelled faintly of burnt sesame.
Upa-Buddha sighed.
A monk nearby murmured: "Even Māra doesn't tempt him." Another replied: "Why would he? There's no glory in it."
The frog croaked once, in the tone of a being who has seen everything.
Commentary
The Māra texts in the Pāli canon are, if you read them a certain way, comedic. Māra shows up. He tries something. The Buddha sees through it immediately and names him: "I know you, Māra." Māra departs, frustrated. This happens over and over. He never wins. He never learns. He keeps showing up.
What the Upa-Buddha text adds to this tradition is the question of what happens when Māra shows up and realizes he has the wrong target. The answer, apparently, is that he asks for directions and leaves.
"There's no glory in it" is the line I keep coming back to. The monks are not saying Upa-Buddha is untemptable because he's pure. They're saying he's untemptable because there's nothing cinematic about corrupting him. He's already muddy. He's already robe-less. He's already standing in his undergarments in a forest path, waving at the literal embodiment of delusion. Māra works in the theater of the ego, and Upa-Buddha's ego is too waterlogged to light on fire.
There is a teaching here about what genuine humility does to the architecture of temptation. This is not the teaching I planned to give, but these are not the texts I planned to find.
The Sutta of the Discouraged Walker
The Text
Thus have I heard. After the incident of the mud puddle, and the second incident, and the third incident which scholars agree was "technically a ditch," the monks gathered around Upa-Buddha with grave concern.
One of them cleared his throat.
"Cousin of the Blessed One… perhaps walking meditation is not your strongest form."
Another added, gently: "There are many valid practices. Sitting. Standing. Lying down. Remaining very still."
A third monk, who had personally witnessed the pond entry, whispered: "Very, very still."
Upa-Buddha looked confused. "But the Blessed One teaches walking meditation."
The senior monk nodded. "Yes. But he does not teach falling meditation."
Another: "Nor slipping meditation."
A younger monk, trying to be helpful: "Nor unexpected submersion meditation."
Upa-Buddha sighed. "I only wish to practice sincerely."
The monks softened. The eldest placed a hand on his shoulder.
"And you do. But sincerity does not prevent gravity."
A frog plopped into the pond in agreement.
Commentary
"Sincerity does not prevent gravity" is going on my wall. It may be the most useful single line in the entire Upa-Buddha cycle for actual practitioners of actual meditation.
We come to practice with sincerity. We sit. We breathe. We try. And then we get distracted. Or our back hurts. Or the mind goes somewhere unpleasant. Or the cushion is damp. Or someone outside is playing music. Or it's Wednesday and there's something about Wednesdays.
Sincerity does not prevent gravity. The conditions arise. The mind wanders. The body aches. The puddle puddles. This is not failure. This is dependent origination, expressing itself in real time, right there on your cushion.
What I also notice in this text is the tenderness of the monks' concern. They are not scolding him. They are genuinely worried about his wellbeing. "Remaining very still" is funny, but it comes from a real place. They have watched him try. They have watched him fall. They love him enough to suggest he try a different form.
He says he only wishes to practice sincerely. They believe him. They've seen him practice. That sincerity is not in question. What is in question is whether the path has to be this wet.
The Sutta of the Protective Cow (Muddynupassanā)
The Text
Thus have I heard. Returning from alms round, Upa-Buddha walked with the careful, deliberate steps of a man who has been explicitly told by the monks: "Please… no more walking meditation." He was upright. He was focused. He was, for once, dry.
Ahead on the path stood a cow and her calf.
The cow lifted her head. She saw him. She considered him. Her maternal instinct flared.
She thought: "This man is a threat." Then she looked again. "…No. This man is… something else."
She decided not to gore him.
The calf, however — young, impulsive, unburdened by wisdom or restraint — took one look at Upa-Buddha's earnest, slightly worried face and thought: "Target."
With the enthusiasm of a being who has never once questioned its own momentum, the calf lowered its tiny head and bonked him squarely in the hip.
Upa-Buddha tilted, wobbled, windmilled, and fell — with the inevitability of karma ripening — into yet another mud puddle.
SPLORP.
The cow sighed. The calf looked proud. The frog, from a nearby pond, plopped in solidarity.
Upa-Buddha sat up, dripping, blinking mud out of his eyes.
"I wasn't even meditating."
The monks, upon his return, noted the mud. One asked: "Walking meditation?" Another placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Perhaps some sitting practice this evening."
This was the origin of the Muddynupassanā lineage.
Its first recorded teaching: "Again?"
Commentary
The cow's discernment is, I think, theologically significant. She looks at Upa-Buddha, her maternal threat-detection system engaged, and then — seeing him clearly — stands down. "This man is… something else." She cannot categorize him as a threat. She cannot quite categorize him at all. She simply recognizes that he occupies a special category of being that does not require her intervention.
Her calf has not yet developed this level of insight.
The calf is all of us at the beginning of practice. Full of energy, clear about targets, absolutely certain about momentum, and completely wrong about everything.
"I wasn't even meditating" is the line that breaks my heart a little, every time. Because this is also all of us. The falls that happen when we're not practicing are not separate from the practice. They ARE the practice. The calf that bonks us is the practice. The mud we didn't ask for is the practice. Muddynupassanā — seeing clearly in the exact conditions you didn't want — is not a joke. It is a genuine school of insight, founded by accident, on a muddy path in Jeta Grove, by a man who was just trying to get home from alms round.
The Mettā of the Almost-Right One
The Text
Thus have I heard. It is said that Upa-Buddha practiced lovingkindness in a manner not found in the texts, nor taught by the elders, nor recommended by anyone with balance or confidence.
He began with the difficult person, for he thought: "If I can soften toward him, surely the rest will be easy."
He then turned to the beloved, thinking: "This is cheating, but I need a win."
He then offered mettā to the neutral person, murmuring: "I don't know you, but I hope you're doing alright."
And only then — after exhausting every other option — did he turn toward himself.
He whispered, almost apologetically:
"May I be well… though I don't quite believe I deserve it."
The monks, hearing this, shook their heads. "This is all wrong," they said.
The frog — the wisest of them all — plopped into the pond.
The frog thought: "This is how most beings begin."
Commentary
The canonical sequence for mettā practice begins with oneself. The logic is sound: you can't pour from an empty cup, which is also a Dhamma teaching, which is also something I think about more than I probably should.
Upa-Buddha's sequence — difficult person, then beloved, then neutral, then self — is wrong in the technical sense and devastatingly accurate in the human sense. Most of us, if we are honest, find ourselves the hardest person to extend lovingkindness toward. We will cheerfully wish wellbeing for enemies, strangers, even that person in the meeting who always brings up the same thing. But then we get to ourselves. "May I be well…" And something in us wants to add "though I probably don't deserve it" or "though I've been pretty bad at this" or "though it's complicated."
Upa-Buddha just says it out loud. That's the whole thing. He is not wrong. He is just honest about where he actually is, which is actually the beginning of correct practice.
The Buddha's response to this, in the Commentary on the Cousin section that follows, is one of the most important lines in the cycle: "He begins where his heart is honest." The order matters less than the sincerity. You start where you are. The path is wide enough.
The Sutta of the Unknowing Teacher
The Text
Thus have I heard. It is said that Upa-Buddha walked from village to village believing himself to be a burden, a disappointment, a man who could not even keep his robes clean.
He thought: "I am not wise. I am not steady. I am not like Him."
But the villagers whispered: "He is humble."
The children whispered: "He is kind."
The monks whispered: "He teaches without knowing he teaches."
And the frog — the wisest of them all — plopped into the pond and thought: "He sees his mud but not his heart."
Upa-Buddha never knew any of this.
He only knew that he slipped often, fell regularly, and tried sincerely.
And that was enough.
Commentary
I have been teaching meditation for a number of years. I teach at a Dhamma center, I teach at a hospital, I lead a weekly sitting group that integrates Buddhist practice with daily life, and I've been doing a formal teacher training that has made me think very hard about what teaching actually is.
And I still have moments — more than I'd like to admit — where I finish a session and think: "I'm not sure that landed. I'm not sure I knew what I was doing. I'm not sure I'm the right person for this."
What I have learned, slowly and with considerable mud on my back, is that this doubt is not a disqualifier. It might even be a qualification. The teacher who is absolutely certain they are teaching correctly is probably not reading the room. The teacher who wonders if they are doing it right is, at minimum, paying attention.
"He teaches without knowing he teaches" is not about unconscious competence. It's about something more radical: the teaching that happens when you stop performing wisdom and just show up, honestly, with your actual confusion and your actual sincerity and your actual slightly damp robes.
The frog gets the deepest line: "He sees his mud but not his heart." This is the whole thing. We see our failures with great clarity. We are less adept at seeing what persists through them.
The Buddha's Commentary on His Cousin
The Text
When the monks approached the Blessed One and said: "Lord, your cousin practices mettā in the wrong order. He begins with the difficult one, then the beloved, the neutral, and only then himself."
The Buddha smiled — that small, knowing smile that meant he was about to say something that would sound simple and rearrange everyone's insides.
"He begins where his heart is honest."
The monks looked confused.
The Buddha continued: "Some beings find themselves easy to love. Some find themselves impossible. The order matters less than the sincerity."
A pause. A faint breeze. A frog plopped into a nearby pond, as if on cue.
The Buddha added: "My cousin thinks he is failing. But he is simply beginning where suffering is greatest."
Another monk protested: "But, Lord, the texts say—"
The Buddha raised a hand. "The texts say what is skillful. Beings do what is possible."
And then — the line that would be quoted for centuries in the margins, never quite canonical, always quietly beloved:
"Upa-Buddha is not wrong. He is merely human. And at the moment, probably muddy."
Commentary
"The texts say what is skillful. Beings do what is possible." I have been sitting with this line for months.
The texts — the suttas, the Vinaya, the Abhidhamma, the later commentaries — are extraordinary. They are precise, they are subtle, they are the product of generations of careful practitioners trying to transmit something real. They say what is skillful. They give us the map.
But beings do what is possible. And what is possible is always messier than what is skillful. We come to practice with our actual minds, our actual bodies, our actual histories, our actual Tuesday afternoon. We practice from here, not from the ideal starting point the texts assume.
Upa-Buddha is not wrong. He is merely human. This is the most compassionate theological position I have encountered in any tradition. It does not excuse error. It does not endorse confusion. It simply recognizes that human beings are not wrong for being human. We are not failing the Dhamma by being imperfect practitioners. We are practicing the Dhamma by practicing imperfectly, with sincerity, getting up after each fall, and returning to the path.
The mud is mentioned last, almost as an afterthought, almost gently. Probably muddy. Of course. What else would he be?
Part Two: The Jātaka Tales
The Frog Jātaka (Paṇḍupaṇḍuka-Jātaka, probably)
The Tale of the Frog Who Knew When to Plop
The Text
Thus have I heard. Once, long ago, when King Brahmadatta ruled in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a frog — small, green, unassuming, and possessed of a wisdom far beyond his moist exterior.
At that time, Upa-Buddha — in a previous birth as a well-meaning but chronically unlucky mendicant — wandered the forests seeking peace, serenity, and a path free of puddles.
One day, the mendicant slipped into a mud pit — as was his karmic habit — and the frog, seeing this, hopped away with perfect equanimity and plopped into a pond.
The mendicant, covered in mud, called out: "Little frog, why do you flee from me?"
And the frog replied (as animals do in Jātaka tales):
"Good sir, I flee not from you, but from the suffering you create by resisting what is. When there is mud, be muddy. When there is water, plop. When there is falling, fall. When there is rising, rise. This is the way of things."
The mendicant blinked.
The frog continued: "You stand in mud and wish it were dry ground. You wear ruined robes and wish they were clean. You are embarrassed by your falls and wish they had not happened. Each wish is a second arrow."
The mendicant felt a moment of clarity — brief, shimmering, and immediately interrupted by slipping again.
The frog, seeing this, simply plopped once more, demonstrating the teaching.
And the Buddha, recounting this tale to the monks, concluded: "Monks, even a frog who knows the moment is wiser than a man who clings to dry robes."
The monks were delighted. Upa-Buddha, listening from the back, sighed.
The frog croaked once, without malice.
Commentary
The Jātaka tales are an extraordinary genre. The Bodhisatta — the being on the long path toward Buddhahood — appears in hundreds of previous lives as animals, kings, merchants, outcasts, serpent-kings, and on one notable occasion, apparently, a tree. In almost every tale he demonstrates some virtue: generosity, wisdom, patience, skillful means.
In this tale he is a frog. And his wisdom is: plop when necessary.
I am not being dismissive. "When there is mud, be muddy" is the entire non-resistance teaching in six words. The second arrow teaching — that suffering is not just the first arrow of pain but the second arrow of our reaction to pain — is explicitly named here. The frog knows it. The mendicant doesn't know it yet, which is why he keeps slipping.
What I find moving about the Bodhisatta appearing as a frog is the complete absence of grandiosity. He does not explain the Four Noble Truths. He does not offer the Eightfold Path. He hops away and plops into a pond. And in doing so, demonstrates — not teaches, demonstrates — exactly what he's talking about.
The Buddha's concluding line has a small Vinaya-adjacent edge to it that I appreciate: wiser than a man who clings to dry robes. The robes are not the practice. The dryness is not the practice. The clinging is the problem. As it always is.
The Apocryphal Tale of the Replacement Sage
The Text
Thus have I heard (from someone who heard it from someone who definitely embellished it):
When the deva appeared to Bāhiya of the Bark-Cloth and said: "Friend Bāhiya, you are not on the path to awakening" — Bāhiya, to his credit, did not argue. He was, by all accounts, a man of genuine sincerity. The deva's words landed. He listened.
He asked, however: "But what of the villagers who revere me? Who will guide them if I leave?"
The deva, with the serene confidence of someone who has never slipped in a mud puddle, replied: "Do not worry. There is… another."
Bāhiya blinked. "Another sage?"
The deva hesitated. "…Another cousin."
And thus the villagers were assured that in Bāhiya's absence, they would be guided by Upa-Buddha: the Tathāgata's cousin, the Almost-Awakened One, the Pond Enterer. A man of sincere heart, questionable balance, and karmic misadventures.
The deva insisted: "The results will be the same."
Which was technically true, because the villagers mostly wanted someone who would bless their rice fields, accept their alms with grace, and not fall into their irrigation ditches.
Upa-Buddha met approximately one of these criteria with consistency.
Commentary
The story of Bāhiya is one of my favorite texts in the entire Pāli canon. Bāhiya is a wanderer who believes himself enlightened. A deva comes to him and says, essentially: you're not. Bāhiya, remarkably, believes the deva and immediately sets off to find the Buddha. He travels an enormous distance, arrives while the Buddha is on alms round, begs for a teaching, is told "now is not the time," begs again, is told again, begs a third time — and then receives what is arguably the most compressed and complete Dhamma teaching in the entire canon:
"In the seen, only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. In the sensed, only the sensed. In the cognized, only the cognized."
And Bāhiya is enlightened on the spot. He then goes outside and is killed by a cow. (This is in the original. The Pāli canon does not pull punches.)
What the apocryphal tale adds — the cousin as replacement — is the question of what happens to the people Bāhiya was caring for in his pre-enlightened, possibly somewhat confused state. They needed someone. They got Upa-Buddha.
The deva's guarantee — "the results will be the same" — is, I think, a teaching about what practitioners actually need from a teacher or a spiritual community. They need presence, humility, continuity, and someone who shows up. Upa-Buddha is extremely reliable on three of these four. Sometimes four, depending on whether showing up counts if you're muddy.
He has no idea he is actually teaching. He thinks he is failing. This is what makes him perfect.
Part Three: A Note on the Mud-Path Sangha
Before the modern encounters, a word about the lineage itself.
The Paṅkapaṭipadā-nikāya — the Mud-Path Sangha — is a small, earnest, slightly damp Buddhist lineage that diverged from the mainline Theravāda tradition at some point that scholars are vague about. Not out of rebellion. Not out of doctrinal dispute. Because they found the Upa-Buddha Canon to be the most honest reflection of their own practice.
They are clearly Buddhist. They chant Pāli. They keep the precepts. They meditate, carefully. They bow to the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Saṅgha, and, on certain feast days, the frog.
But there is something about them.
Something slightly off-center. Something that makes visiting monks say: "They're Buddhist… clearly Buddhist… well… mostly clearly… it's just… all the mud."
And yet many among them have attained arahantship. Quiet arahants. Unassuming arahants. Arahants who slip sometimes. Arahants who laugh easily at themselves. Arahants who do not mind being muddy.
Their meditation instructions are famously simple:
Sit. Breathe. Notice the mud. Don't make a problem out of it. Plop when necessary.
Their motto: "Not wrong. Merely human. And at the moment, probably muddy."
Their lineage holder: a frog.
Their relationship to mainstream Buddhism: cousins. Close enough to recognize each other. Different enough to squint a little. Fond enough to tolerate the mud.
A Sri Lankan elder once said: "They are like cousins who live in the countryside. Strange habits. Good hearts. Very muddy."
A Tibetan lama, after visiting their monastery, remarked: "Their devotion is pure. Their floors are not."
A Zen master, after hearing the Frog Jātaka, simply nodded and said: "Yes."
Their path is crooked, but their hearts are straight. They awaken sideways. They fall into the mud and come out clean.
They are, as the Buddha said: "Not wrong. Merely human. And at the moment, probably muddy."
Mainstream Buddhists hear that and think: "Yes. They're family."
Part Four: Modern Encounters
The Visit to Dharamsala
From the Chronicles of the Mud-Path Pilgrimage
The Encounter
When the Mud-Path monks arrived in Dharamsala — sincere, humble, slightly confused, and visibly muddy — the Dalai Lama saw them approaching and broke into that unmistakable smile: the one that mixes compassion, delight, and a hint of "oh, this will be interesting."
He opened his arms wide.
"Welcome, welcome! You have traveled far. And… you have brought the rain with you."
The senior monk bowed deeply, leaving a small, perfect mud print on the polished floor.
The Dalai Lama, unbothered, laughed softly.
"Ah. Impermanence."
He offered them fresh robes — bright, clean, beautifully folded.
The monks accepted them with reverence.
The Dalai Lama, with that twinkling, grandfatherly mischief, added:
"These robes, too, are subject to anicca. In your case… perhaps sooner than later."
The Mud-Path monks nodded solemnly. They knew.
A young monk, trying to be helpful, whispered: "We will try to keep them clean, Your Holiness."
The Dalai Lama chuckled.
"Try if you like. But do not suffer when the mud finds you. It seems to love you very much."
A frog outside the window croaked in agreement.
Commentary
I need to be clear that I have no reason to believe the Dalai Lama has actually met the Mud-Path Sangha. This is apocryphal in the fully traditional sense: a story that is probably not literally true but is, I think, spiritually accurate.
What I know to be true is that the Dalai Lama — drawing on a long public record of teachings and encounters reported by practitioners I trust — has exactly the quality this story gives him. He would recognize genuine practitioners instantly, regardless of their level of disarray. He would greet them with warmth, tease them with affection, and offer them robes while knowing perfectly well what was about to happen to those robes.
"It seems to love you very much" is the line I find most theologically interesting. The mud loves them. Not because mud is conscious. But because they are the kind of beings the mud keeps finding — people who practice in actual conditions, who do not wait for dryness to begin, who show up regardless.
Honestly, there are worse things to be known for.
The Rain Retreat in Haiku, Maui
From the Ram Dass Chronicles, Mud-Path Appendix
The Encounter
Years after the Mud-Path Sangha quietly established itself, Baba Ram Dass — as was his habit — invited a wide range of teachers to a multi-practice retreat in Haiku, Maui.
There were yogis, kirtan singers, Zen practitioners, Vipassanā teachers, ecstatic dancers, one confused Sufi, and — arriving late and damp — the Mud-Path monks.
Ram Dass saw them and immediately lit up with that unmistakable, heart-wide-open smile.
"Ahh… my muddy brothers."
The senior monk bowed, leaving a perfect brown imprint on the polished wooden deck.
Ram Dass laughed.
"Perfect. The deck was too clean anyway."
Then — as it does in Haiku — the rain arrived. Not a drizzle. Not a shower. A cosmic joke in liquid form.
The yogis tried to maintain their asanas. The Zen practitioners sat stoically as their cushions darkened. The ecstatic dancers became very ecstatic. The Sufi spun once, reconsidered, and sat down.
The Mud-Path monks simply nodded, as if the universe had finally caught up with them. One whispered: "Ah. Home conditions."
Then — the inevitable. The senior monk, stepping onto the now-slick deck:
SPLORP.
The entire retreat froze.
Ram Dass burst into delighted laughter.
"Oh sweetheart… you're teaching more than any of us."
The senior monk, sitting in the puddle: "I wasn't even practicing."
Ram Dass knelt beside him, utterly unbothered by the mud.
"You're always practicing. You just don't know it."
A frog plopped nearby in agreement.
Whether the senior monk had attained arahantship was, as with most things in the Mud-Path Sangha, genuinely unclear. Many of them had. But the mud made it hard to tell.
Commentary
Ram Dass died in 2019. I want to say that clearly, not because this story is about his death, but because I am writing about a real person, and real people die, and this matters.
What I know of Ram Dass — from Be Here Now, from recordings, from accounts of people who practiced with him — is that he had a quality that I find very rare and very important: he could recognize the sacred in the ridiculous without collapsing either into mere comedy or into false solemnity. He let things be both funny and real at the same time.
"You're always practicing. You just don't know it" is not a joke. Or rather, it is a joke and it is not a joke, in the way that the best Dhamma teachings work. Every moment is practice. The fall is practice. The sitting in the puddle is practice. The being embarrassed in front of the Zen teachers and the yogis and the ecstatic dancers and the confused Sufi — that is practice. Especially that.
"Home conditions" is the line I love most from the Mud-Path side. They walk into rain in Haiku, Maui, and recognize it immediately. They are not surprised. They are not distressed. They are home. This is what genuine practice does, over time: it makes the difficult conditions familiar, even welcoming, because you have stopped waiting for better conditions to begin.
Part Five: The Wednesday Evening Teaching
The Bodhi Tree Chronicle of the Mud-Marked Teacher
I bicycle to the Bodhi Tree Dharma Center to teach on a Wednesday evening. And because the evening was wet, I had that perfect stripe of mud up the back of my shirt.
As my practice is to read the room, go with the container as it is, not as I might wish it, I launch into teaching the suttas concerning Upa-Buddha, the Buddha's cousin who, after countless mud puddles, did reach arahanthood. And promptly slipped into a mud puddle.
Before enlightenment, mud puddles. After enlightenment. Mud puddles.
And then I lead the sangha into the yard, in the rain, for walking practice.
Because why the hell not.
The story ends there for now.
We don't say if anyone slips in the mud. It's a given.
We don't say anyone gets enlightened. It's a given.
We do end with a distinct "ribbit" — followed by a plop.
Thus have I heard.
Or near enough.
The Upa-Buddha is not wrong.
He is merely human.
And at the moment, probably muddy.
Which is all any of us are, really.
Getting up out of the mud, every time.
And the frog, watching all of this with the patience of a being who has been here before and knows how it ends, sitting at the edge of the pond.
Ribbit.
— plop —