Seeing Things As They Really Are

To "see things as they really are" – what does it mean exactly? Many years ago, being a young and naive meditator, I thought "to see things as they really are", from the perspective of meditation, is to direct full mental effort towards a certain object, focus on it continuously, and "drill into it" in order to find out what the object is all about.

Years later, as wisdom matures, it turned out that the object that was being attended to, has nothing at all to do with meditation, at least not directly. Insight meditation is about how our mind works, filtering day-to-day reality. Thus, the object is just a means to explore our mind – from what mindset is it coming from while attending to an object. In this way, we begin to understand the correlation between the mind and its object, be it a situation, an event or a person.

The object, no matter how much we wish to look in-depth, is not as critical or important as the kind of mindset which is looking at it. It is the mindset that determines the nature of the object as right or wrong, good or bad. In other words, it is the mind that needs to be understood. All along, we have been seeing the object through the colored glass of our mental views rather than exactly for what it is.

When we say "understanding things as they really are", it is an effect from a change of mindset – from a deluded way of looking at things to a correction of seeing things in its true nature, without needing to do anything with the object at all. Because of this correction, the object is finally being understood as it is.

Whenever we experience something, we conveniently conclude it as something we "already know" whether we realise it or not. Rarely do we question this "already know" mentality. As a result, it has never crossed our mind to question this mindset. But what if, we were to consider for a moment that what we know could just be our own conclusion, or assumption projected by our coloured glass mentality rather than a true understanding?

Our mind has the capacity of concluding or understanding. We can take a situation at face value as if we already know, or we can understand how they came to be. To "understand how they came to be" is to mean coming to realize the causes and conditions that give rise to their existence. Otherwise, we are often ignorant of what they are and conveniently think we already know. The variable perceptions of our mind that perceives a happening is what we need to be concerned about. The next time when an occasion arises, we can ask ourselves – are we truly seeing things as they really are? That obviously needs understanding. Or are we seeing things based on what we think we already know? It is here we consider ourselves as either wise or deluded. Insight meditation, when well-developed, not only gives us insight to the true reality of existence, but also assist us to live wisely day-to-day. Do join us in WISE to understand your own mind a little better.

In grace, 
Tuck Loon 
on behalf of The WISE Team 
Newsletter 1 September 2020