Perceptions

[bogeyman]

We look around at our physical world and each see the world as it is, each sees it differently due to their own experiences, biological make up, emotional condition and other factors. I show people a rabbit all will say it is a rabbit, yet each view of the rabbit will be different since each person is different.

Our perceptions change constantly according to our understanding, gained knowledge, emotional state of mind, social conditions, psychological effects of the environment, mental health, consuming of substances be it liquid, gases, or solid.

Yet is our perception of the material world real, or are our senses very limited? Is reality a collective perception each person forming a piece of reality? Is reality too bid to contemplate by a single individual, like trying to build a huge structure, just like being a piece of a jigsaw puzzle?

[Blacklight43]

Your perception of what is makes it so.

[Guish]

Maybe we should experience reality without the senses and belief systems.

[bogeyman]

If you think about Avalon for example, we have a lot of different topics, experiences, situations, developments going on in peoples lives and the world, yet are not these registered by each one of us in a different way? Perceptions are a result in some ways a result of our senses, yet if our senses increase into other realms, how would that make the so called 3d reality seem? Is not our views of the world limited or even warped by belief of what are perceptions seem to register?

[petra]

Is not our views of the world limited or even warped by belief of what are perceptions seem to register?

Oh I think absolutely. Let's use colorblind people like a metaphor. There's all kinds of them, and they all see things weirdly. Some people think that's a mutation, and in some really rare cases it can be useful, like seeing something that is camouflaged.

How can we really know what another person's colors look like unless we actually look through their eyes?

Sometimes depending on the angle you look at a color, the color changes. Or also depending on the light. Different people can even remember colors differently - memory is flawed too. I recall a scene from "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where a one guy remembered a boat being green, and the other guy thought it was blue. I imagine that probably happens a lot, people just don't notice it. There have been events happen when I was a lot younger, that when people recollect them to me, I remember the event much differently!

[Guish]

Hi Bogey,

You might find this interesting. It's an extract from the treasury of luminosity by Yojinki (1268-1325) about Zazen. It touches on experiencing reality without mind interference, senses and belief systems.

1

Sitting is the way to clarify the ground of experiences and to rest at ease in your Actual Nature. This is called "the display of the Original Face" and "revealing the landscape of the basic ground".

Drop through this bodymind and you will be far beyond such forms as sitting or lying down. Beyond considerations of good or bad, transcend any divisions between usual people and sages, pass beyond the boundary between sentient beings and Buddha.

Putting aside all concerns, shed all attachments. Do nothing at all. Don't fabricate any things with the six senses.

Who is this? Its name is unknown; it cannot be called "body", it cannot be called "mind". Trying to think of it, the thought vanishes. Trying to speak of it, words die.

It is like a fool, an idiot. It is as high as a mountain, deep as the ocean. Without peak or depths, its brilliance is unthinkable, it shows itself silently. Between sky and earth, only this whole body is seen.

This one is without compare—he has completely died. Eyes clear, she stands nowhere. Where is there any dust? What can obstruct such a one?

Clear water has no back or front, space has no inside or outside. Completely clear, its own luminosity shines before form and emptiness were fabricated. Objects of mind and mind itself have no place to exist.

This has always already been so but it is still without a name. The great teacher, the Third Ancestor Sengcan temporarily called it "mind", and the Venerable Nagarjuna once called it "body". Enlightened essence and form, giving rise to the bodies of all the Buddhas, it has no "more" or "less" about it.

This is symbolized by the full moon but it is this mind which is enlightenment itself. The luminosity of this mind shines throughout the past and brightens as the present. Nagarjuna used this subtle symbol for the samadhi of all the Buddhas but this mind is signless, non-dual, and differences between forms are only apparent.

Just mind, just body. Difference and sameness miss the point. Body arises in mind and, when the body arises, they appear to be distinguished. When one wave arises, a thousand waves follow; the moment a single mental fabrication arises, numberless things appear. So the four elements and five aggregates mesh, four limbs and five senses appear and on and on until the thirty-six body parts and the twelve-fold chain of interdependant emergence. Once fabrication arises, it develops continuity but it still only exists through the piling up of myriad dharmas.

The mind is like the ocean waters, the body like the waves. There are no waves without water and no water without waves; water and waves are not separate, motion and stillness are not different. So it is said, "A person comes and goes, lives and dies, as the imperishable body of the four elements and five aggregates."

Zazen is going right into the Ocean of Awareness, manifesting the body of all Buddhas. The natural luminosity of mind suddenly reveals itself and the original light is everywhere. There is no increase or decrease in the ocean and the waves never turn back.