Things are, as poets and physicists remind us, not as they appear to be.

When things don’t seem to be going your way, you may get entangled in the maya and lose sight of awareness, which is the arbiter of meaning and value.

When you sense yourself drifting from seeing things as they are, this is an opportunity—as both a test of character and how well your philosophy holds up when confronting the density of the world. 

When you do hear the truth, there is nothing more to say.

The word chair, or a painting of a chair isnt the chair. The artist Mark Rothko painted his floating abstracts of vertically aligned rectangles large enough so the viewer could step in and feel engulfed, to have a transcendental moment.

Is art the truth itself or the doorway?

As the Japanese Zen priest, Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, said: “When I raise the hand thus, there is Zen. But when I assert that I have raised the hand, Zen is no more there.”

That moment is gone. When you call attention to the moment with thinking, the truth of it is already gone.

What relevance does this have to me? An insight leads to understanding, and understanding is the goal.

Don’t doubt your courage to feel the truth from wherever it might come.

You’ve heard it before.

When you look into the mirror of your soul, who do you see?

This is an opportunity to view things as they are, not as you would like them to be. This is also called awareness, as the Buddha had taught.

Have you ever challenged your own standard? This is the doorway to art, one way or another.

Happy New Year!

Today, on the radio, I heard two famous scientists discussing consciousness in clinical terms, and brain research, which was in many ways fascinating.

One, a nobel laureate, said: “Awareness is a form of consciousness.”

While this assessment might sound correct, I would disagree. Awareness is a form of art. You can raise your awareness, but not consciousness. You can’t have a form of consciousness; it is already whole and not open to divisions or categories.

What did you learn today?

Last night I listened to an art critic. He was passionate and well-spoken. He also missed the point about art.

He spoke of many things. When he told us that art’s purpose is to raise our consciousness, I had another thought.

First, it’s no one’s business what art does for the individual. The aesthetic experience is personal. Then, even if we were to accept the critic’s idea about art’s purpose, it would be that art has the power to raise awareness. Consciousness is already perfect, and requires no help from us.

Take this at face value. Test it out yourself and report back.