Our perceptions are perpetually influenced by our past. As we navigate through life using our senses and subjectively interpret the sensory information, our impressions are never truly accurate. Both the positive and negative impression hinder our ability to experience the actual event as it is happening . Our perception is a combination of the gathered awareness and our mind’s subjective interpretation of the information.
As we engage with the outer world, awareness streamed inwardly through our physical body via the sensory organs. The data gathered through our physical receptive organs become our perceptions. Our cumulative physical awareness and perception are continually gathered into the aggregated memory storehouse of the collective consciousness stream. The information from the mind awareness are processed through the mind conscious, and we form a response to the outer world, based on our interpretation of the information. The mind conscious is mediator that determine our inner response to the outer circumstances. While it is in a Dualistic state, the mind conscious is named mana, also known as the dualistic mind or the ego-mind.
We do not wholly live life, as it is happening around us. We each have our individualized preferences and aversions rooted in our past. The physical awareness is continually influenced by the mind’s narrative. Our mind constantly engage with the outer world using its subjective filters. While our mind interpret the changing life landscape using bias impression rooted in the past, the present moment commingles with our reminiscence and recollections. Living within the mind’s duality, we continue to shape our future based on the confine of our memories from bygones, rather than on our full awareness of the present.
The dualistic mind is the filter that prevents us from being at Inner Peace, since it habitually causes us to cling onto arising thoughts. As we grasp onto an arising awareness, we become emotionally bound to the outer world. Rather than responding to the outer circumstances using objective clarity, our clinging thoughts propel us to react based on past conditioning.
As the circumstances arise and depart, they activate our memories and engage our mind’s filters and bias, our thought flow diverts from the present moment. As the mind wanders away from the present moment, thoughts begin to cascade and deviate from the original triggering thought. We live within our version of reality, rather than fully experiencing the actuality currently unfolding around us. Whether our nostalgia and recollections are positive or negative, our attention shifts away from the present moment. In the now, past impressions color our judgement and influence our response. Our past habitual tendencies and conditioning continue to shape our future.
To live in the present, we must experiencing each moment, as it truly is. We must recognize the mind’s tendencies for subjectivity and bias, as shaped by the past. The mind’s dualistic state is the filter that hinders us from experiencing the here and now. Fully living in the present is about acknowledging our memories and impressions, yet not be influenced by the nostalgia nor aversion based on the recollections. The life events that shape our impression of the outer circumstances are the karmic fruits from our past. We cannot escape our own doings and yet we can continue to completely be in the present. To be present, we neither let the past Karmic circumstances nor the emerging Karmic circumstances influence the here-and-now.
Each moment is experienced independently from both the past and the future. We do not cling to any one arising thought. Being in the present is not achieved through cutting off the thought flow nor ceasing streaming awareness. The present can only be wholly acknowledged when we have complete vision of both ourselves and the world around us. Our awareness becomes limitless, as the mind is no longer confined by duality. One thought flows seamlessly onto the next thought, uninterrupted by the mind’s tendency to weave its own narrative into the outer event. Our awareness natural come and go, as we face the changing outer circumstances. We continue about our daily life adaptively with unclouded clarity and insight. Each arising moment is an objective present, here-and-now unaffected by the depart past and undistracted by the arising future. At last, all the life moments are experienced with full accuracy by the immaculate non-dualistic mind.
Diana Zen
Zen Moon
January 13, 2019
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- perception
