Representation, Image, or Manifestation, but not Substance!
What one 'sees' is only an 'Image', not a 'thing', nor a 'substance out there',
but a mental
construction, an experience, an immaterial sensation, created by sense-organ,
object and
consciousness 'in here' in the mind and brain...
Just like the image
on the PC-screen is indeed
electronically created and not 'really' in there:
There is an image of an Apple on the screen,
but naturally no real apple inside the PC...
Likewise:
There is an image of an
Apple on the mental
visual screen (occipital brain cortex), but from
that image one cannot
conclude, that a real apple exists
outside, apart from, or completely
independent of the perceiving mind... ! Like in the mirror,
there is no 'person' in there, and
like in the cinema, there is no 'actors' on that screen;
There is only
'images' of persons and
things. These images appear as real, but are
not really
real in the sense they pretend to be...
Images
of what
then,
one may ask?
We will never know as we only have these mental images and never the 'original
' object!
Even to claim that this 'original'
exists, is therefore merely metaphysical speculation based
on
a somewhat naive, simple-minded - if not even childish – local realism & materialist world view...
The thing for 'itself' -das ding an sich- as Emanuel Kant called the assumed
object undistorted
and wholly unaffected by the process perception, will by definition never be available to
us...
This noumenon
object or event, that is known entirely without the use of the
senses, is an illusion,
since we will always only have access to the experienced
phenomenon
using the senses as witness.
Seeing
-Images- instead of
-Realities- is halfway to
comprehending
-Nothingness-...
Understanding
-Nothingness- is halfway to
disabling the urge of -Craving-...
Disabling
-Craving- is halfway to the
deathless dimension -Nibbāna-!
A mere projection
of a desired object into the mind mirror does not infer reality,
neither of the object 'out there', nor of the subject ego assumed as
'in here' ...
The Blessed Buddha once said:
In the seen is merely the process of seeing, and what is seen.
In the heard is
merely the process of hearing, and what is heard.
In the sensed is
merely the process of sensing, and what is sensed.
In the thought is
merely the process of thinking, and what is thought of.
So knowing, you will
not be connected with that sensation...
So disconnected, you
will not be absorbed in that sensed - object - ...
So detached, you
- the subject - will not be defined by that experience...
So neither 'with
that', nor 'in that' "you" are not created -by
that- sensation!
When there is no -you-
inferred, assumed, or conjectured by that sensation,
then -you-
are neither -in here-,
-out there-,
-both-, -beyond-, nor -in
between-...
Only this - is the End of Suffering...
Source:
Udana – Inspiration: I – 10
