Author: asitisnow

What you’re seeking for is stopping you from getting it. When you seek for happiness, it is the seeking that is stopping you from being happy. On the same note, when you seek to resist, it is your seeking that is stopping you from be free. All forms of seeking is missing the mark as it is not elsewhere that Peace or Freedom is found but here in the now. Peace can never be elsewhere since Peace is a result, not a cause. Hence to meet Peace elsewhere you must first develop the cause for Peace to arise now and that cause or causes has to be related to Peace – how could the effect be Peace when the cause is not related to Peace?

Hence when we look elsewhere other than what is here in the now, we are constantly pursuing something that is unreal, ungraspable, unachievable. Similarly, when we wish to create a future, we have to start creating in the now consciously for the future to take place – only if you wish to experience what the future will be like. Imagining the future without looking at what ideas that is running the present moment is only creating exactly what the present mind is. Thus when one seeks the future what one is doing is actually putting the present into the future. Thus when one is resisting, the future has to be resistance. If one is seeking happiness, the future will still be in seeking mode – for each cause has its own unique effect, resonating with each other and on one another.

When we hope for the future without caring about the now, we are just creating castles in the air without basis of any foundation to happen. Thus what we are creating is a future that comes with hope without a foundation. The effect is constantly mirroring the cause and for that the effect that takes place will be the cause for the next effect. The entire mind processes works on conditionality and for that its process is run by cause and effect. Not to know the cause is not to know how the effect takes place. When one misses the cause that has its unique effect, one tries to imitate the effect in vain, unrealized that the effect cannot be imitated except to develop another so-called cause.

Look around us – everything from animate to inanimate objects has all its own conditionality. Thus, to want something is not to get it as to want as a cause is to have want as its effect – hence perpetuating its want when the future is to finally arrive. It is not by wanting do we get what we want, but by working on the causes of the now is where we will meet our future exactly as what the causes developed.

Simple as it may seems yet unknowingly the nature of ignorance is to keep looking, seeking and hoping for something better to arrive someday, somewhere, someplace – not knowing all those are merely a dream of fallacy that has not worked and will never work. Even if it works and you get what you finally aspire for, it is because the cause(s) you put in is in tandem with its effect. How can it be otherwise? It can only be otherwise when we don’t realize the working of this nature of the mind and thus try randomly to achieve a consistent result, which sad to say has never happened at all, except 100% all the time.

Each time when you look at the mirror what do you see? Obviously you will see your own reflection. But rarely do you notice that you are actually looking at the mirror. The mirror and the reflection are entirely two different things altogether. One is where you identify the reflection in the mirror as you in it whereas the other, merely a unique object for mirroring. There are great implications to both kinds of seeing. When the teaching says seeing things as they really are, it is about noticing the object that brings about the projection. In this metaphor, it is about knowing there and then that the mirror’s work is to reflect, to project what is being look into.

And that is exactly what happens to the way we experience our lives. Are we experiencing life with the awakened knowing that it is purely the play of the mind, or that the experience you are in is very real? Both are different ways of seeing altogether. One is recognizing the mechanics of the mind and its potential and that what is “out there” is just a projection, whereas the latter is that what is out there is as real as what is in here. Out there and in here occurs because we did not see the entire setup is the mind. What separate us from the image and our seeing is merely a mirror – that is all it is. In fact it is not even a separation since what is within the mirror is merely a reflection of the seeing, not supposedly another separate object as it seems to be.

When you realize the entire experience is actually the mind conjuring itself, you will be amazed by how effortless your being can be to each moment – neither resisting or holding on as both are amazingly unnecessary since there is nothing to hold or even to resist except an imagination of the nature of ignorant, thinking that there is something out there.

Using the metaphor of seeing the mirror instead of your reflection, I invite you to explore the process of seeing that you are already in now. Experiment to acknowledge that the ability of seeing itself of seeing objects all around is the mind, and what it sees is the mind’s reflection. In other words, “seeing” is the mind’s work. The body that you see of yourself is the projection or a reflection of the mind. The body is an object of the mind. Then expand this consciousness over to your hearing by noticing hearing is happening and the object that is being heard is a reflection of the mind.

So explore seeing as seeing, smelling as smelling, hearing as hearing etc. Do not repeat it like a mantra but rather, do it with a conscious awareness or knowing that what sees is the mind itself, what hears is the mind itself, the very consciousness that we have taken for granted.

In the same way when thought arises in the mind, notice it as the mind rather than what the thought is about. It takes a little conscious knowing, a little awareness to look at that situation differently. In fact awakening is not a kind goal-getting result that is awaiting you somewhere in the future. It is about the potential realization in the here and now where the way you look at things changes – it is merely a change of perception. And this can only happen when right information is given to you and you learn to explore it from that angle. You may not get it immediately – and it is ok; assure yourself it is not because you are blur, unable, or the practice is difficult but rather, it is about being in the process of adjusting to a new way of seeing due to the presence of clinging nature of the ignorant old way of looking at things.

Slowly but surely, when you explore further in a relaxed manner without hurrying to expect a certain result, you will realize a new way of looking at things in a broader perspective, rather than the narrowing mentality of “I”, me or mine.

Through many a birth wandered I in samsara, seeking, but not finding,
the builder of this house. Sorrowful is it to be born again and again.

O house-builder! Thou art seen.
Thou shalt build no house again.
All thy rafters are broken.
Thy ridge-pole is shattered.
Attained is the unconditioned.
Achieved is this end of craving.

THE BUDDHA

When you look into the mirror daily do you notice you are actually looking at the mirror rather than yourself? Yet that experience is not obvious as most of the time the image of ourselves stands prominently more than the mirror itself. Similarly, when you look around are you aware that the “things” around you which includes your body is actually a construct of the mind? Yet that too is not obvious as the “things” are more tangible and real than the presence of mind that cannot at all be verified, except to be known. In that context the mind does a better job than a mirror!

Just as the image of yourself in the mirror is not actually you except a construct of what the function of mirror can do, similarly the mind has the function of projecting itself outwardly making what is not there seemingly in existence. Take for instance, sound. It has long been known that there is no sound “out there” except an interpretation of the mind. Where there is no mind, there is no sound. A familiar question posed on this subject is when we are not in the forest hearing a tree fall, will the falling of the tree create a sound? For those new to this question, it is unimaginable that there is no sound since all the time in our lives anything that comes into contact creates a sound, hence it seems impossible or even insane to think there is no sound arising from such a massive fall of a tree. Yet as been proven by science, the mind merely interprets the frequency created by the contact hence the meaning of sound comes to be.

In other words all our senses of what we see, hear, think, smell, feel, touch, taste are all in reality translation of the mind projecting itself out thus creating a scene of uncountable experiences around us. Yet we are not conscious at all what the potential of this mind can do and thus the imaginative resistance or even holding on to what we experience as wrong or right. Bizarre as we  may one day realize, what we do to the world has not at all left the mind, for the world is the mind itself. Thus, when we resist or hold on we are actually, unknowingly, creating a strange illusion of trap, entangling itself in its own misperception. And to compound that further when one does not realize it is the mind, each entanglement creates further resistance and holding on, thus proliferating the illusion further. In reality, whatever it is, no matter how entangled the mind is, yet nothing actually occurs in the mind – for how can entanglement exist when the mind itself is formless? It is just a play of illusion, of ignorance of what is.

Thus, to be awakened to the mind and find its amazing power of contortion, an illusionist as real as a mirror, is truly a freeing experience. Each time whenever you see something, just remember seeing is happening as to mean the mind is doing the job of seeing. Similarly, when hearing of a sound occurs, just take notice hearing is happening. And when judgment arises, notice that is the the mind too. No one thing, object, or experience within your sphere of knowing cannot not be recognized as the mind, since the word “experience” is the mind itself. Explore interpretations, meanings, separations – you will be amazed the power of the mind in making all these real to your experience – yet it is only the mind :)

Slowly, but surely you will be amazed to recognize the mind in all facets of your life, playing a game of deception. Suddenly, life brings a newer meaning of freedom rather than being identified with survival, insecurity or wanting. Only then do you experience what true joy and happiness is. Enjoy your new found life of perception!