ABSTRACT
Creativity has much to do with experience, observation and imagination, and if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn't work. Francisco Varela went so far as to state that the mind is fundamentally a matter of imagination and fantasy, that perception is as imaginary as imagination is perception-based; that the mind is not about representing some external state of affairs but is actively involved in the construction of reality that constitutes the world. A Buddhist has pointed out in connection with the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnston that perhaps one of the most pervasive metaphors is that of reality as substance. This metaphor most importantly extends to the concept of self as substance. All of Buddhism's theoretical models and awareness practices go towards a transposition from the concept of reality as substance to that of a re-understanding of reality as process-one which is at least to some extent observer-dependent.
