Among The 5 Aggregates Of Existence, sañña - perception is one lofty multiciplity generator.
Is sañña the last existential attribute which the Buddha relinquished prior to entry to Mahaparinibbana?
The perception faculty constructs (demolishes) phenomenal existence from materiality and mentality fluxes (paralle in Science - quarks, leptons).
An electron size lifeform will see a sugar cube as billions of galaxies.
A galaxy size lifeform will see the planet Earth as an electron.
Perception!
When perception is relinquished (meditation), there is a dissolution (bhanga), materiality and mentality fluxes separate and drop out, and vaporize like camphor or a virtual dream.
The lifeform, free from perception, ascends to the unconditioned state of nibbana (ajata, abhuta, akata, asamkhata).
The Buddha was already in Nirvana with all Skandhas Empty. He wasn’t really in this world, conversing with others to teach by example that He was going to enter Nirvana and Mahaparinirvana. But that was only an Expedient Means, as He was in the Body of a Buddha, as an Emanation, having already reached the other shore. Teyata Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Soha. Om.
For the ordinary practitioner perception is important:
“Perceiving constancy in the inconstant,
pleasure in the stressful,
self in what’s not-self,
attractiveness in the unattractive,
beings, destroyed by wrong-view,
go mad, out of their minds.”—AN 4.49
But perceptions arise from views, and it’s the transformation of right view from wrong that’s critical:
“Monks, there are these two conditions for the arising of right view. Which two? The voice of another (also reading) and appropriate attention. These are the two conditions for the arising of right view.”—AN 2, 125-6
