Matthew 13:12 Meaning For Whoever Has

You may have noticed that whatever you give your attention to seems to grow. Dwell on a grievance and by evening you have gathered ten more. Rest for one honest minute in the aliveness of simply being here, and that quiet spaciousness deepens, spreading into the next moment almost on its own. What you have is what you attend to, and attention is the strangest kind of wealth: it multiplies exactly what it touches.

This is not reward and punishment. It is the plain law of consciousness. The one who has awakened even a little to presence finds that presence expands, because awareness feeds awareness. The one still lost entirely in thought keeps losing even the little peace he stumbles upon, because he hands it straight back to the mind, which spends it on worry. Nothing is being taken from you by anyone. You give yourself away, moment by moment, wherever you place your attention. So place it here, and watch what you already are become abundant.

Having is not owning things. It is the state a man occupies within, the sense of self he assumes and feels to be so. To the one who has, meaning the one who inwardly claims wealth, or love, or health as already his, more of that same condition is added, because the world can only enlarge the state a man is actually living from. Assumption feeds itself, and abundance flows toward the feeling already held.

From the one who has not, even what he seems to have is stripped away, because inwardly he holds lack, and lack too multiplies. A man dwelling in the feeling of not having quietly loses ground, watching the little he thought secure slip off. The law shows no favoritism. It simply hands each man more of whatever state he is being. What you carry as your inner condition is the seed, and the harvest is always the crop of that seed and no other.

Saddhā: Trusting confidence An opening trust that lets a teaching in. Nazareth knew him only as the carpenter's son and shut the door, so little could be done there, and a closed house has no room for anything more to be brought into it. Where this trust softens the ground, more keeps being given because the gift has somewhere to land; where it hardens shut, even the little already inside is soon lost.

Yoniso manasikāra: Wise attention Attending to a thing from its root. Two people hear the same story of seed and soil; one works it over until the meaning opens, the other lets it run off like water off a stone. This working is the having that gets more given: an attentive mind draws teaching from anything, while a careless one leaves even a plain lesson no place to catch, so it is taken away untouched.

Bhāvanā: Cultivation Developing a quality until it grows, bringing it into being. A tended garden feeds itself, this year's growth enriching next year's soil, so the gardener already holding a little green keeps getting more. Steadiness of mind ripens the same way, each small gain making the next one easier until understanding piles up into the promised abundance.

Paññā: Wisdom The discernment that sees into how things are. The mysteries of the kingdom go to the disciples while the crowd keeps only the outer story, and this seeing is the whole difference between them. It is the shape the promised abundance takes: sight that cuts past the husk of the parable to the grain inside, so that to the one already seeing, more meaning keeps being given.

Avijjā: Ignorance The basic not-seeing beneath all suffering. Isaiah's people look without perceiving and listen without understanding, their eyes and ears wide open while no light finds room within. This is the not-having, a dullness so thorough that the small truth once held slips its grip, so that from him even the little he has is taken.