The Builder

Silently, the builder forms my reality

Covertly, a tapestry of life is woven

Footsteps leaving occulted trails

House, constructed by the blind 

Each thought, a brick and mortar

Fear or love manifesting an abode

Choices selected without intention

Watching, never seeing

Experience betrayed by aspiration

Present, hostage to past and future

Judgement breeds cascading desire 

Thinking, never aware

Haranguing voice eternally echoes

Unwanted companion barks chaos

Disjointed beams, unlevel floors

Listening, never hearing

Participating, I form my reality

Watching, I am seeing the level plumb 

Thinking, I am aware as the saw transits

Listening, I am hearing the hammer strike

Each thought is a building block of reality

Every block will demonstrate fear or love

Remaining present, I can choose love

This is my home, I am the builder

This poem synthesised the relationship I have with my monkey mind. Asking questions about how my world is created pushed me down a long rabbit hole of self-discovery. The following illustrates the many challenges I faced when learning to dance with my monkey mind as it taught me how to embrace fear over love. 

Silently, the builder forms my reality

Covertly, a tapestry of life is woven

Footsteps leaving occulted trails

House, constructed by the blind 

Illustrating how we create our reality without participating in thoughtful construction, the initial stanza of the poem is written in the third person. Most humans live and think on auto-pilot. We make choices built on our past experiences and conditioning. Humans form reality unaware of the auto-pilot function. To use a metaphor, humans are convinced they are driving the car, but a hidden monkey has control of the steering wheel and we are watching the video game from the backseat. Humans feel we are in a state of conscious awareness when we manifest our reality. But, as depicted in this first stanza, I question the idea that we may not be truly aware. The metaphor of a house being constructed by a blind person seems apropos. Within the next three stanzas, I expose some rudimentary examples of how we are blind, detached and unconscious from the reality we experience. Houses constructed by the blind.

Each thought, a brick and mortar

Fear or love manifesting an abode

Choices selected without intention

Watching, never seeing

The second stanza illustrates how we are detached and unconscious of the simple truth all thoughts are rooted in only two energies, fear or love. Our thoughts run unchecked without us ever taking a serious look at the relationship between the unfolding of our reality and how each thought will either steer our life toward fear or love. Thoughts are made without intention, we are reactive beings ruled by our incessant need to judge. Our world unfolds and we believe reality is formed by outside influences when in truth all reality is formed from within. We watch our world unfold but never take the time to see the core relationship between embracing love instead of fear. We watch but never see.

Experience betrayed by aspiration

Present, hostage to past and future

Judgement breeds cascading desire 

Thinking, never aware

Our desires and fears mostly drive our reality. There is an unfulfilled gap between the reality we experience and the reality we covet. Handcuffed by our inability to fulfil our desires, we reach for self-loathing or at the very least, feel inadequate. Instead of surrendering to the present moment, we are betrayed by our desires. We want more, but reality does not manifest the more we desire, so we feel lost and disillusioned. When we look at the past or reach into the future, as we often do, we feel cheated because the past never lived up to the desires we coveted and then feel despair that the future will also yield a reality that will inevitably fall short of the ideal we wish to see unfold. Constantly, we judge the outcome of our efforts and abilities. The judge says we are not good enough, so we cannot help but desire more. More power, intelligence, beauty, and money. The gap between what we have received and our desires is like a scar that never heals. We think about our lives but are unaware of the relationship between habitual judging, and unfulfilled desires, and how these shortcomings dampen daily experiences. Our thoughts remain unexplored. Failure to connect with our thoughts creates fear and dissatisfaction which becomes the root of our pain. Thinking but never aware.

 Haranguing voice eternally echoes

Unwanted companion barks chaos

Disjointed beams, unlevel floors

Listening, never hearing

We are all very familiar with the voice in our heads. Most people feel frustrated that this voice is always barking and causing us to feel bad about ourselves, others, and our world. Tying this stanza to the second stanza, if we listen to the voice, we will discover that it is biased to judgement, and fear. Judgement is a seed for fear, the two are deeply connected. We don't like the voice, we hate how it makes us feel, but we seem incapable of making it speak nicely to us or be a gift instead of an enemy. If we had a closer relationship with the voice, we would use the power of the voice to reach for love instead of constantly being handcuffed by the fear it habitually serves us. The monkey voice tries to teach us, but we hide from the messages. Thankfully, the monkey never shuts up, so we are given a new chance to learn a better way to live. Listening to the voice irritates us, so we never hear or learn the lessons. Listening but never hearing.

By participating, I form my reality

Watching, I am seeing the level plumb 

Thinking, I am aware as the saw transits

Listening, I am hearing the hammer strike

The fifth stanza is written in the first person to illustrate the transition from auto-pilot living to consciously forcing oneself to participate and remain present as life unfolds. This achievement can only be accomplished by forging a relationship with the metaphoric monkey mind. Frustrated by my inability to change unwanted personality traits, I realised I needed to stop judging and actively choose loving and empowering thoughts instead of judgment and fear. 

I realised that judging myself, others, circumstances and essentially all aspects of my reality from the weather to hockey scores, was causing me pain and ruining my reality. Try as I might, I failed to get my monkey mind to do what I wanted. Always, I reverted to auto-pilot thinking. Realising I had to take the matter seriously, I created a third persona called my Observer Self. My observer self was charged with the daunting task of trying to get the monkey mind to behave. The first two or three years of relationship-building between my monkey mind and observer self were difficult. I would check in with the observer self many times each day always asking the same questions. 

What have I been thinking? 

Where can I transition from fear to love? 

How can I stop judging myself and my world? 

After a few years of relationship building, I had two epiphanies. The monkey was not my adversary, he was my friend and teacher. Secondly, because the monkey would always teach another lesson, it was irrelevant whether or not I was successfully embracing love and eliminating judgment. Finally, the relationship with the monkey became a dance I loved. When I fell short of my desired outcomes, I laughed and thanked the monkey for teaching me another lesson. Finally, I unfolded the process of listening, thinking, watching and participating in my reality without judging. I realised all iterations of myself were beautiful, perfect and worthy of my love. Reframing the idea of perfection, I saw that it had nothing to do with success or failure. There was never a need to judge myself or anything. I could love all moments, all outcomes. This is the core of surrendering enabling the quickest path away from fear and toward love. We all grow and experience joy in the bosom of love, so why not do all we can to embrace its beauty?

 Each thought is a building block of reality

Every block will demonstrate fear or love

Remaining present, I can choose love

This is my home, I am the builder

The final stanza confirms the key building blocks of joyful living. Realise that all reality will be a function of one's ability to choose love instead of fear. Understand that we have the choice to select one experience over the other. Know that being accountable and present with our thoughts will pay dividends. Notice that the default experience of life is an auto-pilot world steeped in fear. Desire to transcend the default by forming a relationship with the teacher monkey. Remain present, choose love, and your home will be built on a loving foundation. Each thought is either a brick of fear or love. The two skids of bricks lie before us. We can become present enough to manufacture our home with loving building blocks. 

This is my home, I am the builder.