Perception And Reality

This talk focuses on presenting the means, the direction and the ends of spiritual practices by means of a classical Buddhist model and investigation what and who we really are. The closer we look, the clearer we see that our experience of the world is constantly changing because of our changing perception and reality. This talk helps us balance those changes to reach a state of peace and enlightenment.

Transcript

Tonight I'd like to talk about perception and reality.

It's an attempt to present the means,

The directions and the aims of spiritual practice by means of a classical Buddhist model.

When in meditation we carefully investigate what and who we ourselves really are,

What the world really is,

When we explore what the informations are or the raw material which inform us about our existence,

We're bound to make some very interesting discoveries.

The closer we look,

The clearer we see that our experience of ourselves and of the world really is a rapidly changing sequence of instants,

Of moments of perception,

Out of which we instantly form a seemingly static,

Solid,

Predictable,

Controllable world with all its beings.

What we commonly call experience or even reality arises in dependence of a number of causes and conditions which meet and come into contact with each other.

In the moment of this contact a unique momentary experience comes into being.

This process repeats itself continually in such rapid succession that it produces for ourselves the impression of a solid world,

A solid me in a quite solid world.

Quite similar to a movie picture where out of a series of 22 still pictures per second and a certain succession of sounds and voices,

We experience an impressively real reality which often makes us laugh or makes us cry and produces a vast variety of mind states and emotions,

Which after all is quite astonishing,

Isn't it?

If you think that there's a projector and a number of images in a wide screen there we try,

There we laugh,

There we think it's amazing,

There we feel depressed about the lights in the show out there.

The main elements which create experience for us are 18 aspects of perception.

It's by means of six kinds of what we can call sense organs.

We perceive six different kinds,

General classes of objects,

Whereby six kinds of consciousnesses arise.

With the eyes we perceive colours,

Forms,

Shapes,

Light,

Dark,

Contrasts.

With the ears we perceive sounds,

Voices,

Noise.

With the nose we perceive smells,

A vast variety.

With the tongue,

A variety of tastes.

With our body we perceive sensations of pressure,

Tension,

Movement,

Vibration,

Warmth,

Cold,

Pain,

Pleasure,

Movement and so forth.

And with the heart,

Mind,

We perceive thoughts and feelings and emotions.

In traditional Buddhist teachings the processes of thinking and of feeling are seen as the same or similar to the processes of the other five sense fields.

Just that the objects are simply within and the whole process takes place inside only.

But other than that it functions much the same way as the other five of seeing,

Hearing,

Tasting,

Smelling and body sensations.

Also in Buddhist languages one and the same word or concept is used for heart and mind.

I often use the term heart-mind which includes not just the mind in our more Western sense of thought and rational kind of thinking and behaviour,

But also the heart meaning the feeling,

The emotional life,

All of that.

Sort of on a side track,

I think it's interesting to note that science,

I don't know if that's biology or ethnology or whatever,

Has found that thoughts are nothing else than highly differentiated or sophisticated feelings or emotions.

Or the other way around,

That feelings and emotions are the raw materials of thoughts from an evolutionary point of view.

In meditation we at least can see how tightly interwoven those two aspects of thought and emotion are.

So once again the six processes of experience.

When the eye is open,

There is space and light and attention and an object is in the field of vision,

Then contact arises and with it eye or sight,

Consciousness is there right away.

When your eyes are open and you look in this direction and I do this with my hand,

There is a consciousness arising of this form or shape moving.

Take a flower,

Maybe a rose,

There is light,

Space,

There is the eye that is open,

Attention,

Contact and colours and shapes of flower are being seen,

Being experienced.

There is the ear,

Space,

Attention and then the object,

Sound in this case.

And again contact arises in hearing.

The experience of sound is inevitable.

You want to try to not hear this.

You can't.

All the conditions are in place,

Hearing happens.

Burning incense,

There is the nose,

There is the tension which means we are not asleep or really absorbed in something else.

And again there is contact and smelling,

Smell,

Consciousness arises.

You bite into an apple,

It touches the tongue,

There is attention,

Contact,

Taste is experienced.

And the last one again,

There is a thought or a feeling or a strong emotion,

The mind and the heart and the attention is there,

Contact,

Thinking is experienced.

We know there is a thought,

We think a thought or we feel a feeling or an emotion,

Joy or anger.

Whenever the six organs and the six objects come into contact,

The six kinds of consciousness arise.

So we have these eighteen aspects or elements of perception.

This is one way of explaining how this process of being works.

Interesting and also a little strange perhaps in this is that these eighteen aspects of perception or cognition are a complete,

Inclusive description of ourselves and our world.

Nothing left out.

This is what goes on,

On and on and on and on in a very rapid flow.

And it's this that somehow makes itself into solid us and them and the world.

Nothing left out.

At the time of the Buddha there was a great yogi,

He was very old and in fact he knew that he had only a few hours to live.

He had come a long way to meet the Buddha and he felt there was still something he needed to hear from this awakened being and maybe he would understand,

Definitely.

So he met the Buddha and he met him on a begging round situation where the Buddha usually wouldn't teach.

And he'd asked for the teaching and the Buddha said,

Come after I've eaten to my dwelling place and I'll teach you.

And the man said,

I'm not sure,

I may not leave or you may not leave or we may not meet after all.

Tell me now.

And this is the tradition,

Went on three times.

And then the Buddha decided to answer right there.

The man had asked to be given the teachings in the shortest possible form.

And the Buddha's answer became one of his most famous and also most succinct teachings.

He said something like,

In seeing there is only what is seen.

In hearing there is only what is heard.

In smelling there is only what is smelled.

In tasting there is only what is tasted.

In thinking there is only what is thought.

In feeling there is only what is felt.

That is all.

Nothing left out again.

No I or me that is behind it all.

No self or somebody,

Something that owns the whole process,

That has it.

What and who we are is a complex dynamic incredibly swiftly moving pattern of this 18 elements.

And no one in addition who has them or is them.

This dynamic process in the case of a human being calls itself I or Fred or Christina.

This is a useful concept or name to point to something specific to certain aspects of the world,

A particular appearance of life.

It's a designation,

A name,

A symbol that is very helpful and practical.

In the same way we use for example the concept of the name tree or ach or balm depending on one's language.

In order to designate or to name a dynamic living conglomerate of great number of green dots and brown tubes of various thickness and form,

A rustling sound when there is wind and a certain rough texture when you touch it.

It's very practical to have this name so that we don't have to actually show the real items but this time we want to communicate something about a tree or a Fred or a Christina.

Practical,

Helpful to talk.

So far so good.

There is a little problem.

While we learn to use all these names,

All these concepts,

All these designations,

In order to think,

Read,

Write and speak about this dynamic existence we forget or we don't ever notice that these designations and names are static,

Unchanging.

The idea or concept of the name tree is always just a tree.

Whether what it refers to is blossoming in spring or is green and lush in summer or is colorful in fall or is bare in winter.

Now of course there are other concepts and words to describe tree such as blossoming or colorful or bare but they too are static.

Colorful is just colorful whether it refers to yellow-red or to green-brownish or whatever.

Also that concept tree doesn't grow,

Isn't healthy or diseased or old but simply tree.

Six.

And it's exactly the same with I and you with names,

Designations for people.

When I see a certain oval form with a certain arrangement of two glassy openings and some kind of protrusion in the middle and an opening in the lower half of the oval thing I recognize I immediately think,

Oh Hans,

Oh hi Hans.

And with the name,

With that designation or idea,

All the information I have about Hans is called up.

It's a person,

It's a man who's like this and like that,

Always or often does this,

Never manages to do that.

Who is nice or who is okay or who is despicable and so forth.

It's a pretty static approach,

Narrow and limited and not at all realistically corresponding to a dynamic,

Changing,

Impermanent part of life such as the thing that the word Hans refers to really is.

We tend to do this everywhere.

For example with our body.

My body,

In a certain way it is for me.

And then sometimes we're a little shocked in front of the mirror when we find that reality produced something unexpected meanwhile since the last time I looked,

Perhaps unwanted or unwished for.

I don't know if that ever happens to you,

Happens to me.

In short,

By means of our practical but imprecise,

Indirect thought-made perception we create out of a moving flow of perception a seemingly static,

Solid world.

And the consequences are obvious.

Not only is it extremely problematic to relate to a static,

Solid and fixed what really is changing in permanent reality but worse,

We expect life,

Our bodies,

Minds and feelings,

Other people,

The outer world to perform according to my deluded perceptions and my unrealistic ideas and expectations.

And each and every time that doesn't happen,

The world doesn't perform according to my hopes I will suffer.

There is suffering.

Just a little bit,

A teeny little bit,

Or a bit more,

Quite a bit or dramatically much depending on the discrepancy between what I perceive and expect and what life actually produces.

More specifically,

When we have a certain desire but then we don't get what we want,

We suffer.

We expect nice weather and it rains,

We're disappointed.

Possibly not much suffering for English people.

We're looking forward to skiing and there's no snowfall,

Which happens in my country.

Everybody comes with their skis from very far and it doesn't snow.

Sometimes it just doesn't snow.

There's a lot of suffering and disappointment and newspapers are full of the suffering of the hotel owners and the suffering of the guests and the suffering of everybody.

Even the land suffers because they then trample the grass because there's no snow on it.

We're looking forward to meeting our friend and he or she cancels the date.

We're sadly worried,

We're disappointed.

Or we get attached and hold on to something pleasant and it disappears,

It ends,

It goes away which is what it always does eventually.

Again,

We suffer.

Finally my meditation gets somewhat more still,

More calm and pleasant.

There comes the farmer with the tractor or the lawnmower or something.

The person next to me is coughing or rustling or breathing loud or whatever.

In our country the farmer comes who sprays cow shit all over the field.

Very intense.

Or we are in this relationship and it's very important for us.

Our life is centred on it and the partner leaves us or even dies.

It's great suffering,

Incredibly painful,

Difficult.

Another set up for suffering,

When we anticipate something unpleasant or scary with fear and worry and then actually that happens and again that's suffering.

We're afraid that with the next round of efficiency improvement in our workplace,

In our firm they'll cut out our job and exactly this happens.

Then there's the whole fear and anticipation that is suffering and then the fear didn't even help to prevent it.

It still happens and that's suffering.

There's something we hate and we want to get rid of it but it lasts,

It stays with us and again we suffer.

We have an unpleasant or useless co-worker and he stays and stays and stays.

You know how they do that.

The rest can be continued endlessly.

In this way disappointment,

Helplessness,

Sadness,

Loneliness,

Irritation,

Anger,

Worry,

Anxiety arise and we suffer.

In this suffering arises because of our unrealistic relationship to life,

To things,

To people,

To ourselves.

It can be in very small things,

I wish to sit completely still and now there's this itch on my face.

Or the fly,

You know there's only one fly in this hall but it sits on my face and I hate it.

Or it can be in very,

Very big things in life.

I would so much love to keep on living and now I must die.

And it can be with anything on the entire scale in between.

What can we do?

What's the therapy here?

What's the remedy,

The means to heal?

Habitually we try control.

We try to control circumstances,

Try to control the situation,

The others,

Or ourselves,

Our bodies,

Our feelings.

So we're looking for power,

As Ashley Brilliant puts it.

All I need is a good word,

A warm bed and unlimited power.

Humanity has brought under its control the water,

Electricity,

Nuclear power,

Even the dreams.

Does it really make us more happy?

There's certainly a few advantages we wouldn't want to miss.

But happy,

Fulfilled,

Really in peace with ourselves and the universe,

Hardly,

Not really.

So therefore,

I think,

Since we cannot get the universe to play our own tune,

We'll have to learn the other way round to dance in the rhythm of the universe,

Of life.

And it's exactly here where meditation,

Where practice comes in.

In order to be able to tune in,

To dance to the tune,

We have to first be able and be willing to hear it.

So we need to stop,

We need to open and really listen to life,

To our body,

Our mind,

Our heart.

And I think that's what we're doing here.

It's exactly this,

The function of mindfulness,

Of awareness,

Direct,

Immediate presence.

Instead of filling our minds with unrealistic concepts,

Ideas,

Opinions,

Prejudices,

Prejudices of course,

And expectations,

Through which we then meet life,

We stop inwardly and we learn to meet this moment's experience as directly and as nakedly as possible.

And again,

That's our practice here.

And also why practice can't be a question of doing or making,

But it is one of opening,

One of genuine interest.

That's why it cannot be a question of getting something or reaching somewhere,

But one of exploration and of deep listening.

That's why we will not come to understanding through clever words or a lot of clever thoughts,

But through inner stillness and wakefulness and interest.

Hermann Hester describes this quality of listening.

This is Siddhartha who spent years living at the river with Vasudeva,

The ferryman.

Siddhartha listened.

He was now listening intently,

Completely absorbed,

Quite empty,

Taking in everything.

He felt that he had now completely learned the art of listening.

He had often heard all this before,

All these numerous voices in the river,

But today they sounded different.

He could no longer distinguish the different voices,

The merry voice from the weeping one,

The childish from the manly one.

They all belonged to each other,

The lament of those who yearned,

The laughter of the wise,

The cry of the indignant and the groan of dying.

They were all interwoven and interlocked,

Entwined in a thousand ways.

All the voices,

All the goals,

All the yearnings,

The sorrows,

The pleasures,

All the good and evil,

All of them together with the world,

All of them together with the stream of events and the music of life.

When Siddhartha listened attentively to this song of a thousand voices,

When he did not bind himself to any one particular voice and absorbed it into himself,

But heard them all,

The unity,

The great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word,

Completeness.

It's the quality of listening in a silent way,

In a careful way.

It's mindful exploring,

Looking into things.

What is it that this mindfulness is looking into,

Is investigating,

Is exploring?

What is it that we can learn through it?

A number of things.

One,

We learn to be more at home again in our bodies.

And for some of us that's a very important step,

It's a healing practice.

Becoming together of attention to the mind and the body again.

Then we learn to be more intimately in contact,

In touch with our feelings,

With our emotions.

Not in order to wallow and get lost in them endlessly.

Also not in order to observe them from a safe distance.

Not to even avoid or to deny them or to suppress them or to bring them under control.

Instead it's to learn to reintegrate them into our being with clear awareness and with kindness.

So that we can live rich emotional life rather than being run by our emotions.

Finally we learn to see our thoughts,

Our ideas,

Concepts,

Views and opinions for what they are.

Just thoughts,

Just ideas.

Just views,

Just opinions.

Which appear and disappear in our mind,

Sometimes quite incessantly.

Appear and disappear in our mind without ever being put into question in terms of their reality.

Through this kind of awareness and insight in the various areas of our being,

We create inner spaciousness,

We create more inner balance and more freedom.

It's an inner balance and spaciousness that allows us to choose which thoughts,

Which feelings we want to take seriously.

Which ones we want to cultivate,

Which ones we want to express.

And perhaps even more so,

Which ones we don't want to strengthen and we don't want to express.

We don't want to be run by.

So instead of remaining victims of our conditioning we wake up and we meet life with much greater inner freedom and clarity.

These aspects and areas of learning and understanding are essential and extremely helpful.

Yet ultimately there is more to insight than this.

The deep meaning of Dharma is of a perhaps more radical nature.

Ultimately it's all about understanding or recognizing the true nature of existence.

The true nature of all experience,

Of all the phenomena that arise as we see it arise instant to instant.

Not only the processes and functioning of the manifold appearances but their true nature,

Their essential nature,

Their general characteristics you could say also.

It's in this area that the densest delusion of our perception is taking place.

And it's in this area that insight is most needed.

It's here where insight and understanding really liberate.

The relevant characteristics of all conditioned existence are change and impermanence,

Anicca.

Dukkha sometimes is translated as unsatisfactoriness and I think even the translation is unsatisfactory.

And number three,

Emptiness of self-existence,

Anatta or srimnyatta.

To explore these aspects of all experience,

Changing nature,

The fact that it can produce a lasting satisfaction for us,

And the fact that there isn't anything that remains solid where we can put our finger on to.

In exploring this,

In order to recognize this,

It doesn't really matter what our experience is.

Whatever arises,

Pleasant or unpleasant,

Wished for or unwished for,

Easy or difficult,

It shows these characteristics.

So what matters really is that we look into the nature,

Into the characteristics of anything,

Any moment's experience.

Best of the ones that we have right now.

We look into its substance,

Into its texture,

Texture perhaps.

And as we look quite deeply and carefully,

Continuously,

We may recognize the experience through mindfulness that this so-called reality arises from moment to moment out of this 18 aspects or elements of perception.

They exist as contact for a moment and then the whole thing falls apart instantly.

When we see that in an in-breath,

In an out-breath,

In the moment we see a bench there,

In the next moment we see a plant there,

In the next moment we see a window and then a face and then we hear a sound,

A voice.

Each time when we see experience arise out of the elements of sight,

Sound,

Touch,

Taste,

Smell,

Thought,

Feeling,

And then the moment they originate,

Change and drop away.

When we see that,

We experience the dynamic,

Impermanent nature of existence on each arm.

And we see that all the time.

We can't help seeing it.

So it's not so much a question of developing this profound,

Incredible deep meditation and then in 150 lifetimes we start to see that all things change.

They change as I talk.

You can see the words come out,

You hear them and they drop away into somewhere,

Nowhere.

Parcel Leben,

A Swiss life insurance,

Had recently big ads posted.

They said,

The only thing that's certain in life is the constant change.

It's unusual deep wisdom from an insurance company.

Seems like that's where they're earning their money on.

When we're in contact with change,

Then grasping,

Attachment,

Holding on,

Starts to look absurd and very obviously painful.

When we see how we hold on and how something we hold on to changes,

We'll feel that it's painful,

That there's suffering in that holding on of something that changes.

And with that seeing,

That experience,

We'll let go,

We'll open.

We'll go more easily with the way things are.

Not from knowing it intellectually.

We all know that and we think it's a very good idea probably,

Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

But that doesn't do,

That's not enough.

It's the seeing,

The directly experiencing it,

The feeling how it is when we hold on to what changes,

Being aware of the suffering that arises immediately and then being moved to open,

A grip to let go.

When we recognise through mindfulness that each and every experience in this existence will pass away,

Then we also experience the unsatisfactory nature of things.

It becomes clear that what changes cannot bring something that lasts,

Because it changes.

It becomes clear that the endless search for lasting satisfaction and for genuine fulfilment within the changing things and beings must remain inattainable,

Impossible,

Out of reach.

And we turn away from endless becoming to resist being.

Again we let go,

We're more willing to accept and be with what is,

We begin to settle into what is without grasping it.

Maybe we could say we settle into the ungraspable,

In the here and now.

When we recognise through mindfulness that except for the dance,

The symphony if you wish,

Or the cacophony,

That's English,

Of these eighteen elements of perception,

There isn't an additional I itself or a reference point within us or anywhere,

Which is again graspable,

Which remains somehow the same and changing,

Then we experience the non-self-existence of all things,

An avtav,

A sonyata.

And it becomes clear that something reliable,

That lasting peace or fulfilment can never be found in what is created,

What merely appears to be and then changes.

And we begin to entrust ourselves in the non-created,

In the non-conditional.

Instead of saying much more,

I'd just like to remind us,

Understanding transformation in the freedom is possible,

But much depends on our true interest in really looking deeply within,

With continuity,

Exploring our body,

Our heart and our mind in a very consistent,

A very meaningful way.

And it's true,

We've seen again today,

It can be very difficult at times,

It can be very demanding,

Especially the first,

Second day of a retreat for those who didn't know or for those who have forgotten.

There are many difficulties,

Hindrances,

Who can arise.

It's normal.

But also we do have a wonderful situation,

Wonderful,

Precious opportunity here,

A lot of support of this beautiful place,

Of all that is needed for practice.

So,

As one Tibetan lama puts it,

I'd like to close with this.

While a sailor has a boat,

He should cross the ocean,

While a poor man has a wish-granting cow,

He should milk it.

While a traveller has a superb horse,

He should ride it to faraway places.

Now,

While we have a precious human situation for practice,

Think with great joy and enthusiasm how you will travel the highway of Dharma practice,

Ever closer to inner freedom and to compassion for all of life.

And what it takes is very simple.

It's just very fully,

Over and over,

Being here where we already are,

Coming into contact,

Feeling,

Looking,

Seeing what is.

And everything will be revealed by itself.

Thank you for listening.

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