The following is my own understanding and practice of Buddhism, based on forty years of experience. I was drawn to esoteric spirituality at an early age. I grew up in a newsagents, and there were various books and magazines, and the one I was immediately drawn to was a now defunct occult magazine published since the 1930’s and although it kind of had a bit of everything, magick, runes, witchcraft, tarot, yoga, Hinduism, it often went quite deep, and occasionally included Buddhism.
I read this every month until I was old enough to go to town alone. Actually, now I think about it, it was actually BEFORE I was allowed to go to town on my own. I stayed on the bus after school two stops, halfway into town, there was a little occult shop.The kind of thing that probably doesn’t exist anymore. My Christian aunt had never allowed me in there so it was all forbidden and mysterious. I remember I was in school uniform, and it was raining. I pushed open this huge wooden door and a bell rang atop of it, and inside the central isle was full of incense and crystal balls, beyond the counter on the far wall were powders and potions. The walls were lined with books: left side near was antiquarian Western occult, far left modern occult, right side near Eastern thought, right side far, New Age. Basically, paradise.
My reading of the wide-ranging subjects in the magazine had served me well. I had a wide interest, of anything that would help me on the spiritual path — and I’ve largely maintained this wide focus over my lifetime. I remember that first visit to the occult shop so fondly. I purchased a book called Practical Magick, kind of an introductory affair, a book from Taiwan about Pure Land Buddhism, a deck of used Morgan Greer Tarot cards and a little blue clay statue of an Egyptian mummy. I asked the guy behind the desk about it and he said it was ‘from the pyramids in Ancient Egypt’. Looking back, he meant it was likely a fake antique some tourist had picked up in Cairo rather than a genuine thing (evidenced by the fact I was able to purchase it with saved up pocket money), but I was a schoolboy, and so as far as I was concerned, I had a 3000 year old artifact that was possibly cursed. Not only that, if my Christian Aunt found any of this stuff, her wrath would be worse than any ancient deities after me so I hid it in the airing cupboard and was terrified for the first two weeks — but I’m still here forty years later, so I think we can confirm it was tourist tat.
I moved to South East Asia when I was 20, and (with a six year India stint) stayed there all my life. I spent six weeks in a Zen temple at one point and formally took the precepts, and I worked for three years editing Buddhist transcripts for a US meditation centre. I spent a few years around Kathmandu and Dharamsala, and so was exposed to the Tibetan practices with their distinctly magical slant on the Buddhist teaching. Although my formal precepts were Soto (Zen) the huge benefit to being a convert to Buddhism from a non-Buddhist country, is being unencumbered by cultural expectations of path. I also practiced magick, and never lost my fascination (obsession?) with the broad subjects surrounding what, at the time, I labelled human potential (philosophy, Hermetics, witchcraft etc.). I’ve essentially given my life to the path of awakening, and also methods of material attainment; I never really saw any conflict there. If the world is essentially an illusion and the concept of separation (from what you experience) is also illusion, then it’s self-created and as long as there isn’t attachment, an abundant world can be created around one.
Over time, I’ve developed a fairly unique spiritual practice which I feel has not only carried me on a journey of unfolding awakening, but also allowed me to control the material aspects of life, to manifest the material abundance and conditions that I wanted, and needed, for my journey. This is what I want to present now. I think it will be of interest to people who already have a Buddhist practice but want to synthesis this with a process of manifestation, and also for people who have a practice of some kind of manifestation, (law of attraction, vision boards etc.) with some success, and want to take that to the next level. Weather you want to call yourself a Buddhist (which I do, among other things) or if you just want to add a daily practice to an existing manifestation practice, and include the intention of awakening to make the law of attraction and/or the law of assumption (depending on your bag) actually a spiritual path and a way of life.