The Problem with Perception (Part 3 of 6)

Hats, Saws, and Ticket Stubs

Remember the magician that we mentioned in part 1, the one that sawed her assistant in half? As we all know, sometimes rabbits go down holes, but at magic shows, rabbits are pulled out of hats. Now in real life we might be intrigued if somebody pulled a rabbit from a hat. We might think “Oh, what a cute bunny” or “What the heck is that guy doing with a rabbit in his hat?”, but pulling a bunny rabbit from a hat is a relatively innocuous event. If we actually witnessed somebody being sawed in half, however, we would be horrified, terrified, and disturbed. What’s the difference between our real life situation and the magic show? The difference is that at the magic show we recognize that an illusion is an illusion. What we perceive is not what our body’s eyes tell us it is. There is no difference between these tricks at the magic show, because they share the same content, i.e. they are both unreal. A decision was made right up front, probably when we saw the word “magic show” on our ticket stub, that nothing we were about to see would have any real effect. In the real life example there was no such notice, and we were quickly able to judge the bunny in the hat as harmless and the murder of the assistant as horrifying.

So, where are we going with this? Yep, we’re headed to our biggest rabbit hole so far. We have been taught that an illusion is an illusion, period. It is not what it seems to be. Something is either an illusion or it is real. There is no compromise. Seems pretty clear on paper. As I’m sure you’ve already recognized, our everyday life isn’t quite so easily categorized. Most of us are relatively comfortable with the idea that what we perceive is illusory, because it changes or because it is an interpretation. None of us are comfortable with the idea that pulling a rabbit from a hat and sawing a person in half are the same in this “reality,” even if they are both illusions. We are much more comfortable with a hierarchy of illusions, in which we place different values, different interpretations and different meanings on different illusions. For us, all illusions are not created equally; they are definitely not the same.

Go as far down that rabbit hole as you are willing. Are the magic tricks the same? Is a rock the same as a flower? Is a picture of an apple the same as the word “apple?” Is a cold the same as cancer? Is Mother Theresa the same as Osama bin Laden? Are spiritual people the same as the non-spiritual people? Are the Baptists the same as the Buddhists? What about the Bible and A Course in Miracles? The child and the child molester? I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that if you are reading this post, these things are not the same for you. Just be aware. Be aware of your hierarchy of illusions. We all have one. Sure, the lines blur, our judgments change, but we all have one.

So, can we identify any characteristic which would make all of these seemingly different ideas the same? Well, we can identify one fairly readily: they are all different. Each one of these symbols at its most basic level tells us that it is different from the other symbols. Of course, we add layer upon layer to our symbols, but again, at their most basic level, the content of each of these says, “I’m different. I’m separate. I’m not like everything else.” We can argue about how different and jump right back into our “hierarchy of illusions,” but consider that at their most basic level these symbols all say, “I’m not like the others.”

Mindful perception recognizes that even though people, places, things, times, etc. are illusory and should be the same, they are not the same to us. We value the differences, and those differences are of utmost importance here. They are the things that keep the mutilated lady from being treated like a rabbit in a hat. So, everything here is different in form, but the primary content, the primary purpose, is to first establish the differences. Perception is the seemng witness to these differences. It is then our interpretation of the symbol, our interpretation of the differences, that determines how we feel about it, react to it, etc. There is no objective reality here. This is an extraordinarily important awareness, and we haven’t even made it to part 4 yet…