Perception: Understanding Its Power
Perception has power and it can be surprisingly strong. Normally, perception and habits work together to create a mistaken view of our world. In this audio recording, Tulku Migmar Tsering responds to a student question from a teaching session in Mexico.
The audio teaching is in English and Spanish!
Perception as Fuel
What is the Fuel, What Feeds Our Negativities?
Tulku-la explains how incorrect perception feeds our habits. Perception always comes from first not knowing. Perception is the mind’s expression or its reflection. It does not exist out there somewhere in the world. Using the example of many brands of mineral water, or choices of food, Tulku-lu describes how we all have different perceptions or appreciations.
Even if we are a small group, we can watch how we react to the food in front of us, and then we can see this easily. We will find that each one of us has an individual perception or a mental projection of the quality of the food. Some find it delicious, but others may find it horrible.
Mistaken Perception
Who is right or wrong? If we are talking about food and its nature, we are all wrong. We are not recognizing reality. And what is the main cause? Mistaken perception is based upon the self — it is always involved with “me” or “my” or “mine.” Our perceptions are “my interpretations.” The label good or bad that we put on the food is how it seems to “me.”
There is a duality. We divide everything into me and others. It is a false dichotomy that we are creating. We see people as good or bad, horrible, or saintly. But this is mistaken. Yes, everything and everybody manifests differently, but everything is pure. Everybody outside is different, but we only look at the outside and don’t think about the inherent nature.
Good News!
We ourselves are pure by nature! Think how promising that message is! But, unfortunately, we are making the mistake of only tending to see the negative side and not realizing the good nature that lies within. With a recognition that our nature is truly good, then we can have hope. We can see that we have the potential.
And this good news provides inspiration. We realize that we each have this pure center because it can encourage us to work! We can then understand that we have the potential to achieve a higher level. We can then truly enter the path of BuddhaDharma.
Responses
It seems that, to eat a healthy diet, we should realize that what we like is often just what we are used to.A diet that is
non harming to other beings and provides nurishment should add livelyness to our life.