Creating the real

During the Buddhist study group tonight, we discussed the metaphor of the loom and thread, which is used to describe the practice of silent illumination. While the "silence" is represented by the standing loom which spins the cloth, "illumination" refers to the ability to spin threads together to form cloth. Can we say that all reality is created by the mind? In a sense, yes.
   I should qualify this, however: I don't think that Buddhism is trying to uphold solipsism. Far from it, the idea of "everything created by the mind" puts a person more in the place of actively striving to make sense of the forms and impressions. After all, there are endless ways that people can respond to adversity, and even the notion of caving in is still a choice that people consciously make when they are feeling overwhelmed. It is hardly reality, and yet in constructing one's world, one also has the ability to confuse the world for something that exists independently of one's thoughts and attitudes. This is problematic, and it overlooks the role of creative effort in sustaining one's perceptions of the world.
  To say that the real is created seems to entail "hard work". However, I begin to suspect that it's much harder to go through life not affirming this view. Why? It's because when a person gives up their understanding that their experiences are created by the mind, they have to work hard to defend themselves against what turns out to be only their thoughts. If a person recognizes the way that they co create their experience (or even create it) through the way they process and think about it, they can be less attached to things as though they existed independently of one's framings.