460. Creating The Present

To be creative, I need to be present. I need to see the intuitions arising from my awareness, which can tell me what is most needed and necessary in this moment. I cannot do this when my attention is distracted by memories of the past or thoughts about the future.

I have many beliefs about the past and the future. Attachment to any of these beliefs will produce suffering. For a belief about the past, this suffering often takes the form of regret or grief, while for a belief about the future, it often arises as stress or anxiety. These feelings grab my attention and send me down paths of thought that impede my ability to notice my creative intuitions.

Suffering of any kind can also impede the functioning of my imagination. I need my imagination to cooperate with my intuitions for creative inspiration and creative action to develop. This is incredibly challenging when my attention is moving through time — through memories of the past or potential scenarios of the future.

I need to see the present moment and what it demands, for that is when creativity is possible. The eternal present is the place of truth and beauty and it is these that I must glimpse in order to create something that can carry them (in however limited a form) into temporal reality through the medium of the artwork. This becomes nearly impossible when my attention is under the control of attachment.

I need to be able to notice when my attention has been pulled out of eternity and into time, so that I can allow it to return to the present once again. This means I need to investigate the regrets and anxieties I feel and their sources in my attachments. Seeing my situation more clearly, I will feel compelled to reject attachment and liberate myself from time. Then I can exist wholly in the present, and all of my actions will be creative ones.