Living Every Moment

Every moment is an opportunity for enlightenment. We graze the grass, hug the trees and see that in every single beat of the heart, inhale or exhale of the breath and sensory exchange, we are able to see a little clearer, with a little more joy.

I don’t know the truth for myself, let alone anyone else. I do have moments where it seems clear as to what is helpful to abide to the universal laws of nature and to deepen my connectivity with life, in contrary to increasing my disconnect or divisiveness with it. It happens through the breath, it happens through the body, it happens through perception. My scars are silhouetted into elements of a harmonious whole and what is realized is unity. Things that are causes of my misery vanquish when I’m in tune with what is wholesome. Then, I feel better than I did. I feel whole and unique in this wholeness, like a child playing in a bathtub in a world huddled to itself, free of the chaos and confusion on the other side of the curtain. We’ve unraveled the veil here, just a little bit, to see that it is really all “rainbows, smashed to smithereens,” and we are happy.

To express this authentic joy is to be it, to feel it and to live it. We don’t need someone else outside of us to attain it, but inspiration comes from those who are examples in their own action and perception on how they have peaked through their own ignorance. I am grateful for these people, and many are my friends, each having his or her own unique moments of unveiling day by day. I’ll admit that I’m a learning, wandering, lost-at-times being sharing the same questions we all have. Yet we all have the moments of clarity where we see beyond the veil into our selves of purity. It’s wonderful to witness the changes. Life is constantly changing, so to be alive, so are we. It’s a process. Observation is taking place. The moment ceases to have meaning when we contain it rigidly. Selectivity in one manner can help us define the things we carry with us on our path. However, too much and we are like a comic strip, trapped to the panels on one page, when it is every page that accounts for the context that gives us meaning and the framework from which to begin our discovering. One page is enough, when we know how to read it - how to see beyond the expression into the expressing and into the source of joy that inspires true freedom and authenticity.

Let us not be caught up in the mundane, trimming branches, when the root remains rotten. For anyone seeking freedom, dive into the way you see the world and yourself. Dive into the things you take for granted, positive or negative, these are the things you don’t usually notice. Each thing unnoticed is one passing piece of life that may offer some tools, context and enhancement of what can be reflected on. This is also not something to search for, because your attention is full already. What is it full of? We can offer our energy to fruitful, wholesome qualities, or demonic, destructive, unwholesome qualities. We are all containment of both. Human beings are examples of both and what we create and live in either state is our example to ourselves and the world. It is our framework to see whether it’s benefiting us or others. So each moment stands at the precipice of seeing or ignorance, reverence or concealment, light or darkness. As map, compass or flashlight, the tools are ours right now.

Here is something I wrote on a typewriter recently:

You are a master of limitation.
To think that you of knowledge and of time are bound to this creed.
Where bountiful freedom abides, there rests all unlimited being.
Bewitch the be-witcher, a guise of misery and complexity.
Stand where freshness begins and all form is in communion with this direct observation.
This seeing is truth without reaction. It is life unencumbered.
"It sees the false in the false and sees the truth in the truth."

“Even now, the world is bleeding. But feeling just fine, all numb in our castle, where we’re
always free to choose, never free enough to find, I wish something would break, cause we’re
running out of time.” - Overcome by Live

Find your freedom. Don’t choose it.

Joy to you all,
- Anthony

750 words a day - free flow writing

At the start of this month I began a free trial on 750words.com. The website is set up for a writing exercise that was inspired by the 'Morning Pages' from Julia Cameron's book, "The Artist's Way." It also blends in nicely with a simple exercise I learned from Natalie Goldberg's book, "Writing Down the Bones." The basic premise is to write in a quick pace for a certain number of minutes or words and stop when you are complete. As a writer, I tend to nit-pick words and their placement in a sentence. This exercise of writing without too much indulgence in sentence structure, proper punctuation or even clear ideas gives valuable insight into discovering new ways of writing, explaining and getting to the root of what it is you are saying.

(Piles of my notebooks and writings.)

This example given in 'Writing Down the Bones' describes how our raw language can be edited to lose all the magic it once held in its spontaneous, flowing nature as it came fresh to the page. The line she wrote was, "I cut the daisy from my throat." The inner censor that avoids the risk of, "Someone will think you're crazy," would instead say, "My throat was a little soar, so I didn't say anything." Proper and boring.' We like to swallow our hearts with our minds and hold back any sensitive, authentic wisdom that urges forth through us in sobs, aches, 'imperfections' and emotion. I say 'we like,' because we do it seemingly many times before learning not to. We polish our shoes, cars and houses, tighten our ties, appointments and attitudes and run down the rabbit circle we call progress. Ready for battle against all that naturally springs forth from the goodness that children, bunnies and flowers embody, we destroy sensitivity in ourselves and lose the understanding and faith in why it's so valuable and calls true to our essence.

As I wrote 750 words mostly every day of the month, my free flowing mind became less tight and I could write without concern. As I've stopped doing this practice as consistently, I've noticed the difference in how it is to write this blog post. The words are a little more like heavy rocks in the river of my mind, being weighed down for a while before drifting on with the flow again. The timed writing practice is the same, where instead of setting a limit on how many words you write, the limit is set with a number of minutes to write for. Essentially it is the same exercise. Get out of your own way and let the raw information and processing of all that you can write about show up on the page to re-shape the way you approach writing anything, be it a blog post, novel, article, essay or comic strip. The exercise is a freeing way to open unexpected doors, explore unexplored thought patterns and cultivate a discipline dedicated to the process. In some ways, writing in this fashion is like therapy. I imagine it would be hard to write every day and not naturally come to a reasoning of, "I'd like to be less of a jerk." Timed stream of consciousness writing is an open door to face ourselves without 'ourselves' getting in the way before the meeting, fresh and without make up.

Joy to you all,
Anthony

Anniversary Reflection - One Year of Art Training

Just over a year ago. Two days over in fact, I signed up for the online art program by Watts Atelier. www.wattsatelier.com. It was April 1st, 2016 when I began my traditional training as a representational artist. I dove into the program and watched many videos, with little practicing. Of course I was also doing that with Schoolism courses, and it took me a while to realize that the practicing of art is essential to developing skills, not just listening to lectures about it.

A month or two later, I signed up for a workshop in San Diego to go meet Jeffrey R. Watts and the other instructors at the brick and mortar school. This made me want to practice more, to have some skills when I got to the workshop and get the most out of the instruction. This attitude of getting really good to supposedly impress the instructors in some sense was unrealistic. Not that I really was going for impressing them, but I was expecting growth that just doesn't happen in a summer of beginning this approach to drawing.

As I continued, I realized the effort needed to develop these skills that I had never tried to develop. My inspiration continued from the content I gathered from Watts Atelier, both for free on Youtube and from the month of taking the online program. The respect I had for these teachers and the work they must have put in to get as good as they are also expanded as I tried to do this myself. The balance of life's other activities and the practice and learning of art had to be understood and reflected on over and over. I've done a lot of pointless practicing and useless time spent browsing artwork or skimming over lessons without doing the necessary practice to actually learn these. This was done before this last year of practicing, but also during this last year when I was learning how to train in art properly.

Some of these things became clearer after the workshop with the advice from the instructors, like how to navigate the variety of things that can be drawn for practice, and to spend time on the right things to be a well rounded artist with a long-term progression in mind. In other ways, this wasn't entirely clear after the workshop, because it needs practice to be put into practice. The understanding of how to comes with the doing, and there's no real answer to how to navigate this learning, even now. It's a constant metamorphosis of learning how to learn this content, but I have some much better ideas after trial and error. Even with the guidance of the Watts team and other artist talks I've listened to, one has to figure out how to do it, especially without daily contact and guidance with one of these teachers who has already gone through these trials. Even then, it's up to one's own discretion.

I feel that I've experienced many of the symptoms of beginning a serious art discipline that Jeff Watts lists as commonalities for students in their early year development, spoken of in his inspiring Youtube video: How to Train to Become a Working Professional Artist. It's been good to have that talk to reference, to understand that I'm not different than other beginners when it comes to learning how to spend your time and energy wisely, schedule your training and follow through with the practice. I think the approach the Watts school takes with 3 hour training sessions/classes, with 20 minutes of drawing/painting and then a 10 minute break, repeated, is beneficial for focusing, memorizing and committing to the work. After jumping around with ways of creating practice time, like an hour and a half session, or 1 hour sessions, or no sessions and just working whenever I can, I've returned to the 3 hour Watts way and found it is best.

One thing I've realized too is how to be balanced and do a lot of work. This is also a changing understanding, but something that I am developing is a detached intensity. It is not healthy to get frustrated over lack of practicing, but it is not going to help your skills if you don't practice at all. It also doesn't help to be frustrated and go into your practice with that mind set, thinking about how you need to do more and losing your attention on the task at hand, which is your practice. A wise man needs to be calm among the chaos. The chaos is learning art. The wisdom is doing so with a deep sense of balance and a view of timeless practice, all the while scheduling the sessions of time to develop this. It is this long term, or eternal (timeless) view of practice that is necessary, but the understanding and urgency to do it today that makes for healthy work. Something that helped with this was spending some of the time doing sketches for fun, inventing imaginative work and working on personal projects. The more playful, 'do whatever you feel like' work is just as important for balancing the academic work. It has helped me have more fun so I can keep learning and see where my skills are lacking. It inspires you to do the academic work and makes you understand why you're doing it, which is usually to express yourself in an authentic way, tell stories and create worlds.

In January I started to make Youtube videos, so that there will be a consistent video log of my development. The videos are not tutorials by any means, though at some point they could go there. I'm learning from Schoolism, Watts Atelier, Proko and Aaron Blaise, so I'm going to reference those to people wanting to learn, rather than teaching in videos on the web. It will be interesting to see the many videos I make (2 per month) as years go by. It may be an inspiration for someone in the future who is beginning to go through all this practice like I am. I'm at a point now where I feel I can see my mistakes as I make them, and therefore am beginning to learn quicker. It is good to have this understanding and you'll see it in the videos as I continue.

As last April started my real training, this April is considered to be an anniversary for my art. It is now that I begin with more vigor and have the goal to do 40 hours a week of training. Half of it will be learning academically and the other half will be creating worlds of my own for my personal story. Yesterday I came across an old blog by Stan Prokopenko, who now teaches on Proko.com and was trained at the Watts Atelier. The blog post went through every year he was at the school, and what classes he took. It described in a short paragraph what he had learned and what was a good or bad choice in how he directed his training at this time. It made me hopeful in the sense that his first year of training was slower than the other years. He practiced more as he continued, and I feel the same desire to do so, knowing that it's the only way to get as good as I need/want to be to express the stories I write in an authentic, beautiful way.

At the same time, balance is needed. It's a greater skill to learn how to work 40 hours a week on art while being aware and content, rather than losing your mind and your sense of well being through frustration in training, or guilt with "not good enough, need to practice more." I don't have the bad job I need to get out of, or the living conditions that are determining factors for some people on why they want to do something else with their time. They do it to escape current conditions and this can often lead to unbalanced attachment to the thing they use as escape. My conditions are perfect when I'm peaceful with them. I understand this more and more in my experience, with wisdom. To consistently do something to improve, but remain peaceful and unconditional with it is a skill to appreciate. I'm basically understanding what a path of mastery is and how to walk it, using art as my main context. I also have a passion project of a story to write and it needs nice pictures to give it more life.

I continue my training with a 3 month plan in mind. Every 3 months I will switch 'courses,' as if I am taking a slightly longer term at Watts Atelier. (They do 2 and a half month terms there.) I will incorporate each class into a 3 hour session once a week. Just to be clear, I am not taking classes other than studying online and from books. In this way, I'm getting lessons, but have to self-direct my training and motivate myself without guidance or a determined 'class' to attend each week. In this way, while I work two part time jobs and other things happen, my self-taught 3 hour classes won't necessarily fall on the same day every week, and they may have to be divided into more than one session (two 1.5 hour sessions for example) if needed. Each course title is based off Watts Atelier courses that they teach at their school, as well as set up to work with what programs I am currently in online and the resources I have available to teach myself. The classes are divided based on the skill level I feel I currently have, what I need to practice and how to be well rounded in portrait, landscape, still life and figure. They are based off this previous year's understanding of how to learn and practice on a day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year (one year so far) basis.

The courses are as follows, listed with the details of what I'm using to train in these areas.

1. Gouache Portrait Painting
(Once a week, paint a gouache portrait in monochrome and/or watch demos on it)
- Schoolism class: Realistic Portraits by Jason Seiler
- Painting videos on Watts Atelier Youtube in Gouache
- (perhaps Gouache online course on Watts Atelier school)

2. Head Drawing and 20 minute head layins
(Once a week, do head layins (20 minutes each) or a longer (3 hour) head drawing from photo reference or a model (friend/local life drawing class))
- Schoolism class: Realistic Portraits by Jason Seiler

3. Figure Drawing - Design and Invention
(Once a week, study figure drawing from books and online courses)
- Figure Drawing (book) by Michael Hampton
- Force (book) by Michael D. Mattesi
- Gesture Drawing (book) by Alex Woo (received at Schoolism Live workshop)
- How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (Stan Lee)
- Watts Atelier online school
- Other (Youtube etc.)

4. Intro to Tonal Drawing and Animation
(Once a week, work on fundamental geometrical shapes/2 value construction)
- Watts Atelier Fundamentals Phase I and II content - online school
- Aaron Blaise lessons and begin animating with simple shapes

5. Head Fundamentals
(Once a week, work on head fundamentals)
- Watts Atelier Head Phases I and II online school
- Other (Andrew Loomis books)

6. Inking Essentials
(Once a week, study inking from other artists)
-Mark Schultz
-Robert Watts
-Watts Atelier inking class (when it comes out)

7. Anatomy of Arms and Legs
(Once a week, study anatomy of arms and legs)
- Watts Atelier
- Aaron Blaise
- Proko
- Other

8. Basics of Perspective
(Once a week, study the basics of perspective)
- Ernest Norling books
- Scott Roberston Youtube
- Watts Atelier and other

9. Still Life monochrome painting in gouache
(Once a week, paint a still life in gouache - photo or observed from life)
- Watts Atelier

10. Figure Drawing and 20 minute figure layins
(Once a week, draw figures from photo reference or life)

(The following classes are associated more with inventing and creating the worlds of my story)

11. Plein air/Urban sketching and invention
(Once a week, observe nature and use local environments to develop and create your own)

12. Level/Puzzle/Game Design
(Once a week, study game level design and perspectives and develop your own.)

13. Storyboarding/Comics
(Once a week, study existing comics, storyboards and develop your story's layout)

14. Creature and Character  Design
(Once a week, develop your story's creatures and characters and study other artists' work)

As Stan Prokopenko's blog post (and many other things) guided me to start this structure of classes, and document it as I learn, so may these blog posts guide another learning artist to practice and develop the skills to live a healthy, balanced life on the path of mastery.

Wish me luck!

- Anthony

Teachers are sparks, sparks are seeds and seeds are trees

BY ANTHONY ROSS

What I think a good teacher is, is a spark.  Like a fire, a spark can ignite something moving, that takes on a flame of its own and a movement or energy of its own.  The momentum gets started.  What is momentum of a quality.  What is it to be sparked by another person, so that something in them inspires something in you or through you?  So that you can begin to move in a new way and so that the spark may flower into a fire of its own that is sufficient and uniquely your own.

Thus the teacher, with a seed, launches an inspiration for you to water this seed yourself.  As you water it, the seed will eventually become a tree that can bear fruit, and a fruited tree is unique to itself and inevitably a seed bringer for others like it.  The seed also brings the essence of the tree into being at the moment it calls for water.  That to which it inspires, is a spark.  It brings more of the same, with change.

What kinds of seeds are you attracted to?  These are the desires of our lives.  The momentous qualities that we accept or deny as an infusion into what we embody in our day to day lives.  What is it that transforms us into a more beautiful, graceful individual(s)? These sparks, the very existence of them, inspire me, and today I thought about what it is that these are in themselves.

A spark like this comes in many forms.  One form is words.  One can express words from their quality or essence of energy that expresses these words.  The words themselves can be picked up in many ways, and sometimes in a way that is a powerful energetic change.  Someone speaks in a way that brings light to something you knew, but couldn't place into words.  The vocabulary of another can acknowledge the place your own has in the ability to understand and express your understandings, as they are recognized.  You can see the power of words in another only because you have different or similar language in expressing the similar but different understandings within yourself.

In this way, sparks are all around us, everywhere we have a sense. The acknowledgement of them is a tool of reflecting on what it is they are for oneself.  There's a sense of learning about yourself in relationship with yourself with everything you also relate to.  That's always transforming and it is in this place that I acknowledge the tremendous beauty in discovering the sparks that help discover and uncover my true Self.

#organize #philosophy
The seeing of separation

"This is a message of the quiet world."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

We live in an interesting time for publication.  Anyone can make anything and put it in a virtual space that's open and shared everywhere.  It's becoming a world that is less and less separate, from mentality to information.  I think it is in the same way that we are becoming less separate that the separation is becoming more evident.  The awareness of it is coming into us and so it is everywhere on the news, internet and wherever the loudest voices are.  The quiet world, the one that is completely shared, doesn't have to announce itself.  It is easier to show off and be noticed than it is to not show off and be noticed.  The loudness of the world is only half of the whole.  The quiet world is more powerful, but less often on stage to the larger audience.

We're all tired of seeing the same old things.  The internet, though a valuable tool for sharing, has more spam than good.  It is an expression which the loud and quiet worlds both use.  The quiet videos may not have as many views, but can change somebody's life for ever more.  The loud videos speak of change, or improvement, but often are skewed in their vision.  They do not see the whole.  They do not see the way that things are is because of the way they are.

The quiet world, knowing that reality changes on observation, sits and is still.  The quiet people give the universe at large it's say, and stop trying to control it with tools.  Thus their world functions in little chaos, because it is the way of the world, not the way of the people who misunderstand themselves and what they are.  They think they're separate from the world, but are not.  They announce this separation to anyone they can, because they are insecure about their idea.  It has to be proved, or else they would be running in circles in life.  This is what they are doing, unconscious people, but they have built ideas around as a false sense of stability.  If only clouds had walls around them, and we would never have rain.  It is not for us to decide how the laws of nature accord, it is for us to accord as them.  Otherwise, separation is, and conflict continues.  This is a message of the quiet world.

#play#philosophy#writing
The child is free at play

"The other is the child, who plays free and in what seems like utter chaos, but with a closer look is a harmonious rapture of energy."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

I think there are many people who end up writing books from what they write on their blogs.  Whether fictional or non-fiction, the blog is a good place to digest ideas for oneself and to express things to a broad audience.  Anyone can have a taste if they care to read.

I've started writing again on a consistent basis.  Partly to digest what it is that I might write and partly to write what I'm digesting.  It is, unlike other social media, a medium where a greater expression can be given.  One that's not broken down into pictures and a few words.  In these last couple days of writing, I've noticed a theme.  The theme is play and the struggle I have with it.  This would be, perhaps, the book I would write.  As someone who struggles with play, I would learn about it and use the context of writing to explain to myself what it is I'm discovering and applying regarding this subject.

Play to me is a struggle.  Why?  I think it has to do with the components of knowledge and ignorance.  When I say ignorance in this context, I mean lack of knowledge.  In starting out life as a child, we know nothing.  We feel our way through life and we do what we must do, without understanding how others may perceive it.  We cry, eat, poop and sleep.  Crying is our language and the others are our necessities.  What happens later in life?  We start to have ideas about things and without connecting with the feeling of necessity or the language that we created without any secondary hand outs, we are forced into a world of symbols.

Terence Mckenna once spoke of how the magical bird that may appear outside a child's window becomes a mere 'bird' when the parent comes in and tells them what it is.  The bird becomes the word, in a non-musical, non-playful way. Though there is a magic to this symbolism, I might argue there is a greater magic to the unknown and to language that comes out of feeling and is not entirely guided by the intellect.  I don't know the way out of this, because we do need to communicate.  The key is to not be over run by verbal communication and to 'think' in different ways, through feeling, intuition and in less linear faculties of intelligence.

Play is not an A to B to C type of moving.  It develops well with a good foundation, but it is as unstable as the ocean.  Unstable to the mind and the intellect, that is.  The play itself builds an order within itself.  Play is a flower.  And the water, sun and nutrients the flower must have to grow are like the parent who feeds the child and is there for safety.  The child itself is unbridled in its movement, like the water that nourishes.  We don't know where the child ends up, we can only watch with a caring appreciation and keep it safe.  So as one who attempts to play, I see myself as two people.  One is an adult, watching with wisdom and nourishment.  The other is the child, who plays free and in what seems like utter chaos, but with a closer look is a harmonious rapture of energy.  It is the responsibility of oneself to be these two people, so that the freedom is there, so play is the flower it is and remains innocent like the sun.

What doesn't work is when the adult says to the child, "You must play."  As Alan Watts puts it, "this is a double bind."  As the adult, we can't force the child.  This is putting the adult's point of view on to the child's order, which is free of 'the old.'  Our knowledge is limited to what the child knows.  And the child doesn't understand the adult, who is usually rather confused with too many thoughts.  The two work separately, yet together.  This is the balance of living as an adult, or one who grows up to learn the symbols placed upon reality.  Keep the little bit of madness alive, however little it may seem.  That is the play.

Ceci n'est pas une oiseaux.

#work #play #resource
Playing with the Buddha Board

"These ideas are not reality."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

The silly smile.  What else is there to live for?

Let's talk about something I was playing with today.  It's called a Buddha Board and it's fun.  The reason it's fun is because it's in the moment.  There is only the essence of what you are painting on the board before it dries up.  The way the board works is that you paint with water.  The water dries up and changes as it does.  Once it dries up it is no longer visible on the board.  It's fun because of change.  Everything is fun because of change.

My reasoning for what's not fun is because it is stale.  When I say 'it' I am referring to anything that feels like it is permanent.  Key word being feels.  We all know that change is a constant, but we forget.  When we forget that we as well as all our conditions, as well as the way we relate to those conditions changes, then there is nothing to worry about.  One can't worry in a state like this, because one doesn't know where to begin.  There is joy.  Worry doesn't come into being.

When drawing, there is a time for doing messy work.  This is in the early stage of coming up with what it is to draw.  I find this hard, because I want to develop clean and skillful drawing skills, and doing fast ideas is always doing your work with less care, in the skill-oriented sense.  It is all about getting the essence.  I've used a black ink pen and water brush quite well in this area before, and the Buddha Board replicates that, but does an even better job in lightening the pressure to do a clean piece of art.

I am playing with this idea today, not just the board.  Change is a constant.  Permanence is an illusion.  The one who controls is confronted with change as a constant battle.  They get distorted and illusioned with stability.  That stability is stale and hard.  It creates conflict and struggle.  What action is not struggle is action that comes from the essence of joy.  When joy is something that can't be held on to, but something that moves.  There is no final piece of art work in our lives. :-DEach piece moves in and out of the framing of how we are perceiving.  That's a beautiful painting.

Buddha Board in the studio.

#philosophy

"For the love of wisdom...  Why people do these things."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

While doing Vipassana today, I came up with a comparison between this mental practice and the teachings of Abraham Hicks that I would like to share.

Abraham's teachings rest on three main components.
1) An intention.
2) The manifested intention.
3) Receiving this manifested intention.

She uses different words to explain these three steps, through many contextual talks and conversations, but for simplicity's sake, that's what I've labeled them as.

An intention simply means a wish.  If your intention is to be happy, that is your wish.  If your intention is to get something that you think will make you happy, then that is your wish.  Intentions come in many forms and most forms come with some form of contrast.  She talks a lot about this.  When something unwanted happens, you generally launch an intention of something wanted to happen.  When something wanted happens, you launch an intention of wanting more things like it to happen.  So you can ultimately, be joyous and live a fulfilled life.  That is most people's ultimate wish.

Number two is the understanding that what you've intended already exists.  At this step, it is just the knowledge of it, and not the experience.  Number three is the experience of number two.  Though, each step kind of happens altogether-at-once.  When you have an intention (1), the universe actualizes it (2), and then you have to match its actualization to experience it (3).

How do you meet your actualized manifestation?  Well, Abraham speaks of the emotional guidance system.  Each one of us has our emotions as guidance to let us know if we are on the path of resistance or on the path of receiving what we've put in place with our intentions.  Step two is the universe's way of granting us our wishes.  When we have an intention, it is done.  Step two only occurs as a 'coming into' our manifested intention.

When we are resisting, we won't ever get to step three.  We will constantly be pulling the strings of our intentions, never coming to see the reality of them and experience them.  This is where I want to bring in Vipassana.  Vipassana isn't about intentions.  It's about seeing what is already there.  As I said above, these three steps of the Law of Attraction are all actually happening together.  It's not that you do one step and move on to the next, but they intertwine, as one constitutes the others.

We have all this contextual 'stuff' from our lives that is ready to be experienced.  Once we have equanimity, then our intentions are clearer and the manifestation of what intentions we had is upon us.  Additionally, the things you want aren't the things you want.  The feeling from those things is what you want.  Abraham has said this to her audiences, and it reflects this experience of equanimity.

Equanimity means having balance.  In Vipassana, you maintain balance not with thoughts or objects, but with the sensations that are experienced on the body.  The theory behind this is that these are at the root of your reactions.  In other words, your intention starts there.  After all, any intention you have starts from where you are.  With no observation of where you are, at the depth, all your intentions will lead you astray, even if they are manifested. Sometimes people go so far astray with outward manifestations that they find their way, but that is the long and difficult route to equanimity.  Having balance means that the ultimate goal that is most intended for, true happiness, can exist at any time, regardless of what reality has manifested itself.  The point of dealing with sensations and having equanimity with those is that that is the first reality that comes to be and everything stems from that.

Therefore, in my personal experience, Vipassana includes and clarifies each step within the Law of Attraction system.  Both the law of nature (Dhamma), and the Law of Attraction are universal laws.  They exist within everyone, everywhere.  To have a greater understanding of them proves to be beneficial, since they are there regardless of our ignorance, working consistently.  To develop equanimity of the changing body sensations will paradoxically skip the need for manifesting anything, and enhance the way this system functions.

Step one will be clearer, by being more in touch with the depth of the mind/body experience, so the intentions will have more heart at the base of them.  Step two will be easily recognized with a greater balance of change and the manifested reality will be received with ease when it is not pressed upon to be seen.  The whole process, with the base of wholesome equanimity, provides greater freedom and true happiness.  Thus, the ultimate goal, with every step.