Enlightenment, perception, objects, and lenses by Lewis

[Guest guest]

In my experience it seems that imagination is always involved in

whatever is being done. It is inseparable. Further, imagination is

manipulable by changing the concepts employed, the lenses and, thereby,

derive different experiences of the inseparable appearances that are

inseparable from experiences that are inseparable from awareness that

are inseparable from the lenses and all seems as one thing to me.

 

So it seems to me odd, if we turn the tables on the common parlance, to

treat concepts, lenses, as non-realities, distortions, mere labels, etc.

and other such emptying or dismissing when these are the mediating

phenomena, the lenses that are employed variously and inseparably in all

experience as phenomena that is in their way is no different than a

stone or a body.

 

It also seems apparent to me in experience that objects take form in the

perceptual system because of some " fixing " that treats sensations,

electromagnetic radiation, in a certain way. So we all see, or almost

all, a sunrise. Almost all are sharing the same perspective looking

outward from a rotating earth that we can feel or experience in some

unknown way but which perceptually is not. Though this is considered an

optical " illusion, " this illusion can be photographed, timed, and used

for all sorts of purposes. It doesn't disappear. It is experienced

phenomena. There is are illusions in my experience. What appears,

appears as experience, as inseparable experienced phenomena. There are

perhaps different stories about it. I see the same phenomena differently

when I change the lens. The story can be written differently when a

different lens is discovered to view the phenomena. There is no way to

see what is by dropping concepts alone. It is also achieved by

developing new lenses, by creativity and activity, that we also discover

new aspects of what is in experience.

 

Witness Copernicus as was mentioned a short time ago. He developed a

lens to see the so called reality of the earth and planets revolving

around the sun. Did he drop all concepts to see what you and I accept

but cannot experience as Copernicus did in his discovery? No. Not yet,

that is until we follow his trail of discovery with wholeheartedness. He

did not allow Christian conceptions of the universe to blind him, that

much is certain. But in dropping this, not using it, nothing was

revealed. He was simply free to create a new concept, a new lens,

through ardent examination and measurement to reveal a stupendous

discovery. He did not experience his discovery without concepts but with

them. This should give pause to blind and mindless concept dismissal.

 

The same thing can be said for mirages. We may misinterpret a mirage

image that we experience through a faulty lens, thinking water is there

and it is not, but the image is not imagined, it too can be

photographed. It is phenomena, and it is not empty or misleading. It

simply is and it is a matter of getting the right lens to experience the

phenomena and then producing an understanding, an approximate story

about it so that I can see it for what it is and help others to see the

same. I learned that lesson on tar covered streets in the hot summers

of my you as I chased mirages down the street. I was chasing something

but it kept moving. Others saw it too and some one us called it mirage,

an illusion, saying it looks like water but it is not. I did not water.

I saw a shimmering that is all. I was perplexed how he saw water.

 

 

It seems unwise to dismissing phenomena as unreal, empty, deceptive, to

be rid of, because we fooled ourselves with a faulty lens of ours or

others creation.

 

So instead, I wholly embrace phenomena, drink deeply of it, grok it and

know it and know it again and know it again with improved lenses. I

found going into the dark cave and black voids of concept less

unmediated experience is for another reason important reason. One that

certainly is necessary though I do not have the experience that it can

be done by all. I found it certainly is not to see things as they are.

It is not to see at all. Everything disappears in this experience in a

swirl of light and expansiveness and allness. Nothing is seen discrete

all is movement a continuos flow of sensations. But, I found it hard to

live like that unless I was going to spend all my time teaching others

how to do that, which is relatively easy to achieve with proper

instruction and practice in a short time if one is willing to suffer or

to endure or however you want to put the experience of peeling off the

lens of self that is pasted with such a powerful adhesive to the eyes

and the the ecstatic release from all conceptualization. One cannot walk

the world in this way.....

 

Once leaving that part of the void, the other part of the void became

plain. The void extended in my experience and is experienced as us, in

us and all that is around us, the endless all, and all of it inseparable

in experience....

 

What self-inquiry, deconstruction, concept dropping, loosing attachments

does is to help me see the lenses I wear unawares, how the lens I use

create suffering, how difficult it is to take them off, how I cling to

them and abuse them so that I suffer by what I create, how poorly I

create and use lenses, how inflexible and rigid I am in their use, how

susceptible I am to pick up new lenses with out careful examination, how

I easily use lenses made for me by others and so on. All of the lenses

must be put down, not destroyed or dismissed. One lens however must be

broken and made unusable and that is the self. Only that one needs

disappear and never worn again. Then when I realize that I no longer

need the the self to live, I am free to use the lenses as moved.

 

In my experience, lenses are lenses. Tools. They are phenomena in my

experience that are used to see new and old and to explore endlessly.

What I see and create with them after being in the black section of the

void seems to want only that which is uplifting of the appearances,

preserving their integrity and harmony.

 

What seems to me to be important is that the lenses can be taken on and

of as needed and to have the ability to find used ones or new ones or

rework and create new ones so that I can experience in the fullest

possible way the part of the void that is in plain sight.

 

Interestingly, the teachings of the ancients and moderns to do this are

nothing but lenses themselves, their lenses for having me see as they

see. They give me lenses, an I try to put them on. So I put them on my

head, then in my pocket, and then on my feet and then I by chance get

them on my eyes and I see what I think they see but never quite sure

because they never told me what they see, or how they experience. So I

guessed and then gave up. I asked but there was no answer. I never think

there is an arrival and find everyone to be me and to be my teacher, my

guide.

 

I say that their own lessons they never carried far. They were content

with not having any lenses at all. They sat down and taught those who

gathered round them. That, however, is one path; to live a life in the

dark section of the void and to teach that to others so that they can be

free from the foolish way the lenses were used before with the self as

head and then to live properly as the the master of the lenses of

experiencing. These are needed, they will always appear.

 

The mystics of the world went inward to the unseen dark part of the void

for their enlightenment eschewing lenses, especially the self. The

scientists went outward into that part of the void that is in plain

sight creating lenses while glorifying the self. In my experience, being

holed up in one or other section of the same void is non-sense. So I

abide in the void, dark and in plain sight, drop the self in all its

intricacies, and strive to create and use lenses that see and not blind

me in experiencing.

 

This may sound personal, but it could be any one's story.

 

Lewis