The old trope is, “You are whet you eat.” In our practice, “We are what we think,” or “The world is what we think.” That’s not to say that what I think actually creates the world, but it creates the view I hold onto so I can make sense of the world. Empty as they are, our perceptions give rise to the thinking, the thinking gives rise to contact, the contact is with the world as we perceive it to be. Yogacara Buddhism, “The Mind Only” school of the Mahayana, is based on this, as is the Lankavatara Sutra.
We are what we think we are, the world is what we think it is, not that either set of thoughts is necessarily an accurate encounter with reality as-it-is. I create a person according to my thinking, and I tell myself stories about myself, and I believe them. Just because I think I’m the “Greatest Person the World Has Ever Known” doesn’t mean I actually am, neither am I “The Most Reviled Creature Whoever Stained the Earth With My Presence.” Odds are that I’m somewhere in between, but my ability to perceive that and think that are at best a roll of the dice. I might get it “right” from time to time, but just as easily likely to be off by a mile.
These thoughts and perceptions also create our views, and not necessarily Right View. Just a random collections of neurons firing in a particular sequence that creates the thought, that creates the story, that creates the (false) sense of self, and in turn, a false sense of the world. We cling to views, opinions, outlooks, etc. because we take comfort in them, or even familiar discomfort. We may not like to feel angry, but we may have a soft spot for “justified” anger. It creates a world where we are superior to others, as if the world we’ve created revolves around us, which of course, it does. These views are hindrances to our being able to realize our True Nature, where views, perceptions, and consciousness are seen to be characterized by Emptiness and Openness, and there is no problem with that.
Look at the image in the video. Do you see a duck, a rabbit, or a cute kitten? Say Duck, Dae’An will hit you 30 times. Say Rabbit, he’ll hit you 30 times, and if you say kitten, he will roll his eyes. He gave the Dharma talk on February 14, 2024.
