The Problem with Perception (Part 5 of 6)

Just Another Day at the Movies

Mindful perception is the idea that all of perception, everything we see and everything we experience, is the projected result of what we wish to be. Just like we project the guilt of the broken candy dish on a neighbor, we project the guilt of a broken identity on to the world. Mindful perception differs from Webster’s definition in one very important way. Mindful perception does not merely take cognizance of objects outside of the mind, but rather recognizes that we use perception to fulfill a goal. Mindful perception recognizes perception’s primary purpose: witnessing differences. Everything that I think is outside of my mind is really a reflection of what is inside. The world that we perceive is but a projection of our thought about the world and therefore our thought about ourselves. Mindful perception, then, recognizes that it is projection. All of it, everything I see, hear, smell, touch or taste, is a projection; again, a projection based on what I want myself to be.

Imagine your life as a big 3D movie – without the stylish glasses. There’s a beginning, an end, characters, plots, etc. In this movie, this one that we’ve dubbed “life,” we see no projector. Oh, it is there, but we’re not aware of it at all. With projector denied, we have no conscious memory of it, no memory that in fact we chose the film and flipped the “on” switch. This movie is our one “reality” and the only means by which we know ourselves. With no awareness that the movie is a projection, we seem to have little choice but to identify with it. We identify with what we split off to, what is left, and we deny what we split off from. The movie now seems to be where all the action is. It is our “life.” We look to the screen to inform us of who we are not - thereby establishing who we are. We interact with the characters and the images that we perceive, and we recognize ourselves as one of the characters in the film. Remember, we’re actually back there in the projection booth, but we’ve denied, projected, and identified ourselves out of the booth and on to the screen. We could simply change the film or turn off the projector, if we had the faintest hint that we had a choice.

Now, remember our definition of perception from part 1: perception is an illusion of reality based on our own interpretation of sensory data filtered through the lens of our own awareness. In our movie house, that lens of awareness is the lens of the movie projector. Whatever film is selected for the projector, your film, my film, etc. is filtered by this lens. If there is a smudge or a fly on the lens, it shows up on the screen. If it is blurry or out of focus, we don’t even know until somebody suggests that there might be another way to look at the screen and we whip out those smart glasses. Most of us are simply resigned to a blurry world. As for the fly? Knowing that there is a fly on the lens, most of us would agree that trying to kill the fly on the screen would be more than just a little insane; however, with no awareness of anything but the images on the screen, we continue to swat at the shadows.

Mindful perception changes the world immediately, because we experience the world differently. Instead of being a character in the movie, we begin to recognize that we are indeed the one in the projection booth running the projector playing the film of our choosing with the means to clean the lens or don the cool shades. We change the world by changing our orientation to the world. Mindful perception illuminates the causal relationship between one’s awareness (the lens) and what one perceives (the images on the screen). Mindful perception is not a physical experience but rather a psychological experience, an experience of meaning. The world that we perceive is a projection of our thought about the world. If we want to know what is in our mind, the film in the projector, mindful perception says that we simply need to look at the world, the movie. It is all there. It is all there, because we put it there. We put it there, because we need it there. Who we want to be depends on it.