Any Realness in Reality?

Wherever attention is placed is where reality begins. Reality here means believing in the realness to what I am experiencing. If my attention is at what I am seeing, what I see becomes my reality – I will see the floor as real, the plane I am flying as real, the news I read or the movie I am watching at the cinema –  the seat, the screen – everything as real in my own experience. If I see my loved one as sick, I can’t deny she is not sick as that is my experience of reality in my space. If my attention is on what I am hearing, what I hear becomes my reality. Obviously this so-called reality is across the board for all my other senses as well. The question to this reality is that is it really real as in ultimate or real only for me at that point of my experience? Is my reality governed by my mood or even perception? What about the inherent views or ideas within each of us – does it also mould the way I look at things? Seldom do I question the realness of this so-called reality since everything I experience is tangible and verifiable by my senses; more accurately, by my mind.

Hence the equation is such: Attention given to any object = experience = reality = belief

There is a serious implication to this equation since whatever we attend to is what ultimately make us believe as real. Our attention seems to be the source of our reality. It has been found years ago through scientific experiments that the brain can never differentiate, say a so-called real ice-cream held in the hand, and a thought about ice cream in the mind. Both have similar neuron reactions, to mean an imagination is as real as any other reality that I would define as more real – there is no hierarchical differentiation. My attention to what I am holding physically and what I am thinking of the same has similar reality, though in the real world both seems to be different.

If that is so if I am attending to my thoughts, what I think – be it past, present or future – becomes my reality. I will not be aware that it is a thought per se, a so-called memory that arises and ceases away immediately, but will take it as my reality playing at my doorstep now. If I think about a hurt event, that event is not just a thought – it is a reality playing out in my field of experience. Do we ever wonder whether in term of mind experiences are there any difference between thought, imagination, hallucination or fantasy? We think there is but in actuality there is none since whatever that is thought off in the mind are merely mental projections.

The question here is not about thoughts – it is about attention – the unquestioned attention at any one moment of time. Would you dare to questioned yourself honestly that all the attention given to the world is a created reality – a conditioned reality based on whatever is in the mind at that point of experience be it feelings, perception, views etc? We would have missed a big chunk of a puzzle if our focus is on thoughts – thinking that only thoughts are creating our imaginary reality. It is a a-little-too-late-moment to catch of what occurs prior to that – attention.

Hence my so called reality is what I am attending – if I am attending to the hearing experience, my reality is the process of hearing whereas if I am attending to what I am hearing, my reality is the storyline, the sound that plays up the meaning of pleasant or unpleasant. Not that one reality is more real than the other; but one reality defines the mechanics of hearing, whereas the other defines what comes up in the hearing – the conceptual part of it. Both attention will have different result in our field of experience.

What about stepping a little further to the cause and observe (also to mean “attention given”) the “attending” attending to the hearing and how in the hearing the meaning of sound has been given reality? What would the result be? It is for you to guess and for me to realize:)

The cue is this – when you get a little closer to the “source” the field of your reality changes. Will there be an end to it? Meaning to question the possibility where reality ceases at the very very beginning source of everything or is it merely just a mad cyclic cause and effect that cannot be differentiated except an unbreakable cycle of illusion?

A Now Experience, Yet Ancient

not that “I am upset”
but rather conditions promotes arising
hence nature of upset ripens
not “I”, or “you” for that matter
as behind it all are mere causes and effect
taking on its own course
from results of past
not comprehended
not understood
and ignored
replaying one more time
on its own
without me doing upset
but upset doing me instead

hence if “I am upset”
do give me space and time
to remember again
that in truth upset is doing me
though ignorant to this
i am seemingly upset with you
and until I wake up from it
do patiently love me
for who I seemingly am
for I cannot be otherwise
until wisdom comes arising

and if any case you are upset with me being upset
do remember too that your upset
is not really yours but rather
upset upsetting you
probably conditioned
by what both of us
have done
unresolved
unmet
unheard
of ancient guilt and pain
coming back with patterns
that look so familiar
repeatedly triggering
each other again

hence let me be reminded to be wise
in my space of upset
and offering love in
your space of upset
remembering it
as opportunity for forgiveness
of undoing whatever knots
that has not been resolved within
projected outward many times
of ancient lifetimes and rebirths
coming back again

alas
that includes too whatever longing
that I have for you
for each attachment has guilt within
coming back to repay what I thought I need to resolve
of lies upon lies ignorance deceived me
until I fully wake up
that love beholds me to love you
without conditions attached
without repayment of any sort
unconditional
boundless.

Insidious Insider

the work of mind
consciousness perception feeling and mental formation
coupled with Delusion
creates multiple views
so subtle
yet potently insidious

like one tiny virus in a system
once crept in
will multiply
spread
infiltrate
mutate
changing everything in its way
so as to hide itself
for reasons to exist
in oblivion
to the host

“I am”
is not you
but a mutated view
deeply entrenched
in self preservation
of what is past
unquestioned
taken as real
transformed to belief
becomes “I”

many a lifetimes would have passed
probably ten
or fifty
or hundred
or even
thousands
to wake up one day
and realize
what is real now
that refers as “I”
is devoid of self
except an empty shell
of devious old programs
dubious it can be
rerunning itself
fed by how your old ideas
relate to it again

it does not matter whether
the object is something
you like or don’t like
though both reaction may look harmless
yet as insidious
as it can be
the way you relate ignorantly
is where the program runs
and how you relate again
keeps the program going
hence to come back forth
once again
and again and again
and yet again in memorial times
to re-experience
the old pattern insidiously
until wisdom
awakens to it.

how long since have we repeated?
we can never know
how many times have we come back to meet?
was never the question
for what is more urgent is the question
are you awakened
to the program
running the “you”?

Only then the dream ends
and you are brought back to Zero
whatever it means to you.