Seeing More. . .
What you perceive from among all the stimuli in your environment is biased by your preferences, and your preferences are conditioned by past experiences.
Look around you. What do you notice? There are endless things in both your external and internal environment that you could notice. Given that you can’t possibly notice everything, why do you notice what you do? What you perceive from among all the stimuli in your environment is biased by your preferences,
The Buddha taught that perception is one of the five aggregates that comprise each moment of experience. The five aggregates are matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.* The way these aggregates coalesce in a moment can create suffering, or not. You can affect whether suffering occurs by developing new habits of perception, thereby changing what you notice in the future.
It takes effort and practice to break old patterns of perception. You are essentially developing a new relationship to “pleasant” and becoming mindful that what matters in life is something greater than “happiness,” which is fleeting. You are discovering that “pleasant” and “happiness” aren’t reliable sources of well-being. And you are developing the capacity to meet pleasant and unpleasant moments of life equally, which conditions future moments of perception and leads to a sustained sense of well-being.
When you are conscious of this relationship between your mind, stimulus and old patterns of reaction. Reflect on the fact that you have the possibility of bringing this kind of awareness to each moment on your journey know as life.
Peace and Love, Jim
#development #thedailybuddha
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