I am saying that seeing things as they really are is the same as when in the seen there is only the seen. So what is only the seen? Only the seen is the sensory input prior to sanna/perception. We know now that the excitation of the rods and cones in the retina is that input. This input is captured in a slightly curved, essentially flat retina. Ancients would not have known what a retina was. They might have thought the image on the lens of the eye was the input. Either way the image captured is two dimensional.
When the seen in not only the seen, we see three dimensional space because sanna/perception notices cues of relative depth as well as making use of stereographic vision to place objects in 3D space. The cessation of sanna leaves the 2D image intact.
I do not meditate with my eyes closed. Nowhere in in the canon does it say to close your eyes when you meditate. Imagine watching a 3D movie and taking off the special glasses they give you. The 3D image in your mind will become a 2D image. The change is very dramatic. Think of a child’s pop up book. Elements of the picture pop out of the page giving it depth and collapse back when you turn the page. The loss of depth is the collapse. The implied point of view also vanishes.
I would say that the delusion is in the creation by sanna/perception of an implied point of view that puts you “in the world”. When sanna/perception ceases, the implied point of view vanishes and so you are no longer in it.
By intellectual knowing I mean conceptual knowledge. The canon makes a distinction between direct or bare knowledge and conceptual/formulated knowledge.
Oh the meditating with the eyes open is very interesting indeed. When I try it anyway because of relaxing the eyes tend to close. U got any tips and tricks?
AN 4.49 seems to give a good description of “seeing” through the inverted/disordered perception, especially the verse portion:
“Perceiving permanence in the impermanent,
perceiving pleasure in what is suffering,
perceiving a self in what is non-self,
and perceiving attractiveness in what is unattractive,
beings resort to wrong views,
their minds deranged, their perception twisted.
Such people are bound by the yoke of Māra,
and do not reach security from bondage.
Beings continue in saṃsāra,
going to birth and death.
But when the Buddhas arise in the world,
sending forth a brilliant light,
they reveal this Dhamma that leads
to the stilling of suffering.
Having heard it, wise people
have regained their sanity.
They have seen the impermanent as impermanent
and what is suffering as suffering.
They have seen what is non-self
as non-self and the unattractive as unattractive.
By the acquisition of right view,
they have overcome all suffering.” -AN 4.49
It’s interested that the mistaken ‘views’ are described as sañña here, (perception) and ‘seeing’ correctly as ‘ dakkhuṁ’, related to the verb passati.
(dakkhati=passati)
One from Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo here. I was surprised when she said “Buddhist meditation is with the eyes partially or fully open”. There was a D&D thread on eyes open/shut for meditation here; no explicit EBT instructions though it would appear.
There seems to be connotations of the mind opting for one over the other as if it were an option, maintaining the disorder. Clearly, a lifestyle of sensuality would prioritize permanence, pleasure, beauty and self, so it just seems to be a matter of assuming one over the other - a general intention implicit in the choice to behave with one end as the priority (Snp 2.7). In the end, this “twist” is not actually possible - it is factually impossible that the pairs could be reversed and the order changed. Not knowing this is a “twist” in the first place, it seems to be a literal assumption of a misshapen landscape, which would apply to the field of perception, as I read it.
Absolutely. Deeper in the sense that the change that facilitates “seeing” is available for discernment through avoiding behavior (of body, speech and mind) that contradicts the nature of the view being sought.
Just an additional, small, reminder: “Context” (Maybe this is mentioned already, or it is too technical for the intention of your question, so please pardon me).
I think, one aspect of the “seeing things as they really are” is that things, but much more scenes, that we see (and translate into our inner world-conception), have a context - which needs to be considered when we see something. A very nice visualization is the following scribble that I’ve seen much recently on a friendly website
(but of course this is not only meant for the pure visual aspect in the semantics of “I see”/“you see”)
…=========================================================
I’ve once un-cached an even sweeter one, which works with a much simpler visual frame. Enjoy:
To see utterly not just the ‘four’ but the ‘seven’ noble truths, i.e., the seven things as they really are, is a more complete view in context about life in the world.
When we meditate we may “see” all sorts of weird things in our mind’s eye, especially if we are visual types. I’m an artist so I tend to see lots of images. My teachers advise me to ignore ALL of these.
I think that in this phrase “to see” just means to understand. Think of the common rejoinder, “Oh I see!” which everyone uses a lot in the sense “Now I understand, now I get you.”
May all beings come eventually to understand the true nature of things.
I’d like to suggest a different approach to answering this question.
And that is to answer it just with with a single word: Bad.
Not everybody may agree with me and some may think that saying such a thing is very unpleasant.
But looking at it in this way, I think, sheds some very important light on the teaching of the middle way and why it is, in fact, the only way (that does not by itself add to the bad).
The irony here is that I think “to see things as they really are” is an appeal to the middle way. That middle way being “neither perception nor non-perception”. What is “neither perception nor non-perception”?
I believe it is described in Snp 4.11. This is how I think it should be translated.
In terms of something like the arupa jhanas, I think this amounts to
This appears to be a rebuttal to Snp 5.2 and Snp 5.7 in the Parayanavagga. The Atthakavagga and the Parayanavagga appear to be at odds with one another.
Snp 4.11 appears to be describing a collapse/cessation of depth perception and proprioception. Note there is still something in the visual field, it is just two dimensional without a sense of the body being “in that”.
I don’t see how an answer of “bad” amounts to a middle way.
It means DO. If you can see things as they really are then you are dealing with some type of correspondence theory - realism - because we know we shape stuff - in our head. If it’s all shaped in our head, that’s idealism. We can dispense with that. It’s the domain of yogacara. So, seeing things as they really are … that’s conditioned.
How are you ever going to pick your way out of the briar thicket if you don’t see that? How are you ever going to attain anything if you don’t apply effort to the mental discipline you’re being guided towards and just let your brain run away on itself in your head? Or be pushed around and tortured and tormented. Uh uh uh.
Ya’ll aren’t little enjoyers out there peering through a telescope in the back of your head looking at something that is what it is. Nope. You ain’t.
If by DO you mean completely knowing sanna, yes. And that requires neither perception nor non-perception. Theories/views about DO would have been anathema to the author(s) of the Atthakavagga. Formulating views was strictly condemned in Snp 4.3 and Snp 4.5.
May all beings come eventually to understand the true nature of things.