Illusion to Reality

What sound?
Is there necessary an answer?
Will there be an answer?
What if there is no answer?

Is it a trick question?
Or is it just a statement?
How can there be a sound of one hand clapping?
What kind of question is this?

The sound, whatever name I call it, whatever label I put into it, whatever countless questions I attest to it – will simply be exactly as what it is, irrelevant what meaning I put into it. But the meaning of the sound I put into it is not the actual sound that exist in its natural state – it is about the sound rather than the sound. My label has gone far beyond what is, into something that distort the reality of things, that brought concepts over what is true.

When I labelled you with a name, I already don’t see you at all. As the greeting in the movie Avatar goes: “I see you” – I am only seeing you what I perceived about you. I have not understood you, neither can I ever understand you, simply because my perception will always gets into my way colouring you with what you truly are. For that I have to seek forgiveness from you, for interpreting you. I also have to seek forgiveness from myself, for what I see in this world is not truly what it is, except a perception of what is.

When I see a tree, I don’t see a tree except my concepts about a tree. When I have a label of what a tree should be, any other tree that goes beyond my concept is not considered a tree. From a meaning of a tree, I branch further in adding concepts upon it – beautiful tree, thin tree, fat tree, short tree, tall tree, ugly tree, leaveless tree, bushy tree, frutiful tree, useless tree – I am going further and further away from what truly is, exactly as it is with all my meaning I put into the world. How then can I expect to see the truth except layers of fabrications and lies? So long as I don’t recognize them as lies and fabrications, I will be living a world of delusion, evolving around delusion, ending my life in delusion. What a life to live!

If I have a concept what should be right and wrong, I will always judge you according to my own concepts, not what you truly are. All my judgments are self-judgment and for that when I condemned you I am already condemning myself to limitation, to isolation and ignorance. If my life evolves around the polarity of right and wrong, I will be living a life of a tunnel vision, leaving behind the opportunity for wisdom to arise.

I will never be able to see beyond the form what the great masters are, in essence, telling me. I will only see them superficially, making a mockery of their wisdom and turning what is true into something disastrous, for me and the world. All forms are simply label in action. Devoid of true meaning of what is, I will continuously use it for my own means, for my own egoic trip until another label sets in for me to grasp on. So long as wisdom is not allowed to grow in me, getting myself into the way, I can never see any light at the end of the tunnel except darkness.

Until I take full responsibility of my own created delusion, the Truth is always hidden from me.

Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

– Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas

So what is the sound of a one hand clapping? Any answer that I give will either lead me to Timbuktu, Salvation, Freedom or Emancipation, what ever label I put to it. All these labels doesn’t mean anything if I do not experience directly with clear insight into what it is. The direction of what I finally arrive at is solely my choice, albeit an unconscious choice, though in truth is a delusion of my own doing. So long as I don’t see the illusion of this game, I am in the game! Every form I held onto in my own space is all part of the game of delusion.

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

– Tao Te Ching

It is in the non-specialness is specialness found. Anything that is special is merely a facade of “what’s in for me” – a lie the ego tells to entice me to seek further. My egoistic specialness is usually found in my focusing on the future, an effect that may or may not exist. My attention is always on the destination, never or seldom, in the present – the very journey itself that finally arrive me to the destination. The destination is a lie. What is more real to my own experience in the now is the journey itself. Each specialness I give to the destination makes me missed the mark that I am supposed to experience at this moment.

Instead of seeing the beauty of what my partner is, irrelevant whether she is in her good mood or not, I am always portraying that she should not be this or that. I am creating specialness in her instead of seeing nature unfolding in front of me.

To face what is in front of me, no matter how trivial it may seems, is the unseen doorway to my inner gate of freedom. The little, little, understanding of each facing, of each unfolding is the specialness. To look elsewhere for specialness is missing the mark of what is already here for me.

I have specialness in relationship, specialness in achievements, specialness in financial targets, specialness in material gains – all these specialness have not reaped any fruit in the past except enticing me to have more and more, an addictive behaviour, detrimental to my inner beingness. Each arrival  of specialness is short lived – it makes me lost the glory of acquirement and thirst me into seeking further.

Can I see specialness in each moment – that each moment is a wonderful creation of all unseen forces of causes that finally arrived me here in the now, albeit a momentary experience. Each moment is telling me a full story of the conditioning that I have unconsciously created. To be at the moment is to be at the beginning of my creation. Without being in the moment, gathering the data of each differences, I will never know how I arrived at my own conclusion which I always abhored, seeking further and more. I never like what I created, simply because I am always never in the now and thus the future that finally arrived is a creation of my own moment to moment ignorance of what I am supposed to witness. I am consistently in this cyclic of delusion, ferrying me deeper into yet another level of delusion, a web that is so difficult to disentangle.

For that, my presence in the now is much of importance if I wish to create a future that is of my highest happiness and freedom. What is in the now is already an effect of the cause of what I created in the past. Getting angry and upset over what is in front of me makes no sense – whether it is a news I am reading, a person that seemingly is confronting me, or a pity I take upon someone’s suffering – they are all telling me about me – how my judgment is about my own creation that I have unconsciously intended in my cause – the mind that is wittingly playing out what I am intending.

All intention is my creation and thus the Buddha said – volition is karma. When I don’t have wisdom I will be killed by ignorance – chasing for things that is totally irrelevant to my purpose here.

And this is what I loved about the statement made by Yeshua, repeatedly mentioned in this blog:

J said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.”

May I see myself safely home….