Use your imagination

I had a chat with my old lady friend about 15 minutes ago and I invited to have coffee tomorrow morning at a certain coffee shop near the old court house.  She told me it is too early for her to meet at the particular coffee shop and asked to be late for 15 minutes.  This 15 minutes, I can spend it talking to my lady colleague which I am bring along to meet her.  She told me that since most of my time is occupied with my wife, I should be grateful to her for giving me this time to have a romantic chat with my colleague. But, I told her that how she know whether my lady colleague is young or old. She told me to use my imaginations if she is old. LOL.

To be logical, how can we use our imaginations regarding to this matters.  If the painting is painted by an amatuer, how can it imagine it to be painted by Piccaso ? If a thing is old and ugly , why we have to change it to look beautiful in our mind ? Of course, I understand beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder but it must be some kind of beauty , right ?  If the person is a sixty years old lady , how can I imagine that she is only  sweet 18 . Haiyoo, her logic and arguement cannot hold water.

She continued to tell me that she read a book which says " Being aware is not good enough" .  I imagine that the ultimate step is to do it. Like being aware of our breath is not enough to calm our mind, we have to actually tame and discipline our mind or be aware of our greed is not enough, we have to actually try to give to defeat greed.  In the Buddhist teaching, we are taught to be aware of things happening around us or in our mind but not to take any actions , just watch it drift by. So, this book  sounds like teaching people to practice engagement instead of just been aware.  Well, maybe I should try to read this book to understand more of its teaching instead of just imagining what is in this book. 

Using imagination to bluff our mind or blind our awareness is like creating an illusion.  Something that is not real but we make ourself to be real. Of course, living in illusion is much happier than living in real life because what we want  can happen in split seconds. In our illusion, things just happen the way we wanted it.  This act of illusion can make us weak and unable to face the reality in life. We become more complacent , kind and unreal to the real world.  Perhaps, we can practice such illusion technique in a secluded land or a fairy land and undisturbed by the real world.  All these fantacies and make beliefs  is  like a double edged swords as it can cut both sides deeply.

Nevertheless, it is okay to have sweet dreams but be prepared to face the real world which is often cold and hard. This is also part of awareness.

Namaste.