How to See

by Nhat

When our mind is not calm, we do not see clearly. Like the surface of a lake on a windy day, the image we see is distorted. Our perceptions are often erroneous, and cause us to suffer and cause others to suffer.

When we are too sure, we suffer. When we ask ourselves, “Are you sure?” we have a chance to look again and see if our perception is correct or not.

It is very easy to confuse our mental image of something with its reality. It is important not to be too sure of our perceptions.

It is not possible to judge any event as simply fortunate or unfortunate, good or bad, as this age-old story shows. You must travel throughout all of time and space to know the true impact of any event. Every success contains some difficulties, and every failure contributes to increased wisdom or future success.

Every event is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate and unfortunate, good and bad, these concepts exist only in our perceptions.

When we think of a table, we see an image of that table in our mind. But we must remember that our concept is not the thing itself. It’s just our perception, which might in fact be very different from the table.

The way to look deeply is to stop whatever we’re doing and truly concentrate on what we’re observing.

When we focus our mind on our breathing, our mind can settle. Our habitual thinking and worrying subside, and we can see people and situations more clearly. When we are still, it gives insight a chance to arise.

When our mind and body are calm we can see the situation more clearly. Our view is not obscured or distorted.

Most of our feelings and emotions arise from narrow perceptions and incomplete understanding.

When we believe something to be the absolute truth, we cannot be open to new ideas. Even if the truth comes knocking at our door, we will not let it in. We need to remain open so that truth has a chance to enter.

We are quite sure that our perception of reality is correct. We may think someone hates us or wants to hurt us but this may be nothing more than a creation of our mind.

All our suffering arises from our failure to recognize things as they are.

Looking deeply into our suffering, we can ask ourselves how we have contributed to it. This doesn’t mean our suffering isn’t real, just that we have the capacity to lessen it instead of adding to it, and that we can even transform it.

If you are too sure, if you always have conviction, then you may be caught in your wrong perception for a long time.

We have an idea of happiness. We may believe that only certain conditions will make us happy. But it is often our very idea of happiness that prevents us from being happy.

We are all victims of wrong perception. When we are in love with someone we are full of wrong perceptions about that person. We are in love with the image of our beloved rather than the actual person. Once we begin to discover the reality of the other person, which doesn’t quite correspond with the image we have of them, we’re often disappointed.

Whenever we don’t get what we want, we suffer. But the truth is that sometimes we do get what we want and yet we suffer even more. Maybe it’s not what we thought it was, it doesn’t have the desired effect, or it changes something else in our lives for the worse.

When someone says or does something that gives you a painful feeling, you may have the perception that this person is trying to make you suffer. But maybe the truth isn’t like that. Maybe that person was simply not mindful or they didn’t sleep well the night before.

My right hand has no complex of superiority. It never says, “Dear left hand, I see you’re not very useful. All those poems—it’s me who has written them.” It doesn’t discriminate. It’s at peace with my left hand. They never fight. My left hand has no inferiority complex and no equality complex either. She doesn’t compare; she doesn’t suffer at all.

Pride has no place in true love. If you suspect something, go to the other person and say, “I suffer. Please help. Please tell me why you did (or said) that.”

A tree reveals itself to an artist only when the artist can establish a relationship with the tree. If we are not fully ourselves, fully human, we may look at our fellow humans without truly seeing them, just as we may look at a tree and not truly see it.

When we have a wrong perception and persist in maintaining it, we continue to hurt ourselves and others.