The Mechanics of Creation

Whether we call it conscious creation or manifestation, both are merely referring to intention arising from the mind. And as the Buddha puts it succinctly – cetana is karma; literally to mean intention arrives result – every act of intention is continuing us to the next moment of our experience, whether we like it or not.

Intention, unnoticeable many a times, is what propels our thought, speech and action all the time. There is no one moment we are not propelled by intention, so long as we are awake. And that means we are constantly creating or manifesting all the time, moment to moment, in seconds, albeit unconsciously. The truth is that it is not us per se that is doing the creation or intention, but rather the presence of ignorance that is relating to each past conditioning. So long as wisdom is not at hand, to mean the discerning mind in recognizing ignorance at work, what we are experiencing each moment of non-realization, will be the result of ignorance intending.

Hence to create consciously is to mean having the wakefulness of wisdom to create. And that can only arise when we are consciously aware that ignorance is working – believing, and perceiving from past conditioning; and upon noticing it, one consciously create anew, not rejecting or resisting what ignorance is doing, but rather creating in parallel to it. Notice that each time we asked for something, which is to mean intent, we are not intending anew, but rather fixing what we do not like. When we do this we are perpetuating what ignorance is already doing – a matter of fact compounding what is already there. When we like something and wish more of it, we are also intending from ignorance, considering that we are liking something of the past rather than creating anew what we wish to experience. There was never an opportunity for a parallel reality hence what is already there has to perpetuate.

Consider this scene which I find relevant to share. Imagine I am working on getting a new house and there is much to do with beautifying it. So I go window shopping, getting furniture and fittings that will create the house that I wish to experience. Many a times there is a fear lingering at the background of the mind of how much the total cost of renovation it may entails. If you imagine this scene you may have wondered what intention am I creating each moment. The mechanic of creation is this – if I have, say, a 100 thousand dollar to spent on fittings, each moment as I look at the cost of each product, I am calculating what is there for me. It means that I am intending from limitation, rather than intending from what I wish to experience. Not that one is better than the other, except that whatever I intent, I have to experience its result later on.

Do bear in mind “money” is simply an exchange and not something that you have, though in illusion, it is what you have “accumulated”. But in truth what you have accumulated is merely a perception of value, not more of that. Thus, when you look from the eyes of whatever meaning of value, you are already creating consciously or unconsciously from that space.  If you are merely valuing what you wish to experience, putting aside the cost that is limiting your value, you will be surprised by the result which comes to you later. And if you are valuing the amount of money you have, you will have to experience the result of that value too. Remember, the mind is all you have, and that is what you have to experience!

Recently I met a friend who has also shifted into a new home and he told me that the cost of renovation was never in his mind and he just proposed to the contractor what he wished to experience. To his amazement, weeks down the road, the project he got supports what he needed for the new home.

To recapitulate, if I wish to buy, say a handphone, I am intending on the beauty of the phone rather than the meaning of budget I have in mind. When I intend on the budget, I am intending from a space of limiting possibility, hence what I get is simply limiting. To a logical mind, that is what it is – we don’t do things out of our budget – and to go against it is insanity and disastrous! No, I am not requesting one to go against what the mind has already portrayed or intended. Rather, I am inviting one to realize what the mind is already intending, and seeing its limitation, start intending from a new space of what one wish to experience and just go for it. When you are doing this you are not trying to fix what is already here but to create a new parallel reality. Both are intention, one from ignorance of the past, the other, wisdom of the now – and let the future unfold according to what one intend consciously or unconsciously from the now. Try it out on little things and see the result that comes to you.

There is no mistake of what comes in the future. What you get is what you intent, either from ignorance or wisdom. Period. No one to blame, not even oneself – except to realize there is no victimization or victim at any point of a moment, except whether one is awake or not.

The mind is in your hand – use it for liberation rather than being bonded by it.

Ding A Dong, A Call

it is dumb, it is silly,
it is unimaginable
not to mention strange
in not seeing what is already here
to realize and to end
what perpetuates so long, a long time

how can it be
how strange it is
where what is here is not seen
and what is not here imagined
a total baffling encounter
even a Master’s laugh unstoppable

to laugh is to see its reality
to sigh is to see unreal real
to plea is plain ignorant
to hope, forget about it
either you see it or you don’t

so here ends the chapter
no more what’s next
for to ask that is to see continuity
what an illusion it is!
for there is none except eternity
yet not exactly what you think

so stop being blind
just wake up
wake up to realize
blind is here, blind is there
blind is everywhere
and love is all that sees
in wisdom dawn

Oozing into the Now – to End or to Continue

Imagine a scene : the mouth of a sewer pipe extending out from the cliff. At the very edge of the mouth is the beginning of what comes out of it – the very experience that is unavoidable and irresistible when it happens. What comes out is literally a processed process, a continuum of experiences, that of what comes through the mouth at each moment, non-ending so to speak, so long as the pipe is there to serve its purpose.

Yet, the pipe and what comes out from the pipe is two different matter altogether. Irrelevant to what is oozing out from the pipe, the pipe does not complaint or can it be affected by what is coming through; neither can the pipe affect or influence what is coming out. What is oozing out, and what is holding the oozing out are both simply nature doing its work.

The nature of sewer can be smelly, petrifying, dirty or sometimes just affluent water flowing through. Anything can come out of the pipe depending what is being introduced to it. The sewer is merely an end product of what has been ingested, digested and finally excreted into the sanitary system that lands itself into the pipe. Whereas for the pipe, its’ nature is non judgmental – giving its space for what comes through it. It neither complaints nor rejects, no matter what is going through it. Unaffected, the pipe just does the work that is been given. The pipe does not experience. The sewer too does not experience. Both are just nature taking its place. To notice both of these as nature is simply wisdom unfolding. To resist them, not seeing their realities, is delusion at work.

This is the metaphor of the mind. What comes up in each of us, at each moment, be it perception or feelings, are results of what views or ideas we have run in our system through times immemorial. Unchecked, unquestioned, due to forgetfulness or heedlessness, as opposing to awareness or wakefulness, all sorts of ideas or views mould the way we look at the world, hence we have to experience what results from it. It oozes out from our mind every moment, conditioned by situations, events, or anything for that matter, hence making it our experience in each moment. Many a times it is unpleasant, for that we are constantly reacting through attachment and resistance to the experiences. When we react, we are conditioning the mind to be as such in the future, hence repeating the vicious cycle.

When we wake up to the mind, awakened to what is truly happening, we come to realize there is actually nothing wrong with what is coming through the mind except nature of past conditioning replaying its results again and again. Our conditioned ideas and views are what oozes out from the mind in our moment to moment experience, like the sewer. The pipe is like the mind making that experience possible. Delusion or ignorance is the interference that perpetuates the process further. And wisdom is to wake up to what is, ending the process of ideas and views, slowly but surely, when non interference replaces resistance and holding on, hence ending whatever dance that perpetuates the oozing.

And Love is the meeting of the Lover with the Beloved – wakeful acceptance to what is, in full embrace, in love. And when the process comes into culmination, into completion, the Lover and the Beloved becomes one, in unity, in Oneness, no longer separated from each other. It is then, God is realized – both Lover and Beloved a mere reflection of each other.