On Perception

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

Max Plank

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“What was your original face before your parents were born?”

A Zen Koan

Take a moment. Look within. Can you pinpoint a specific location where perception is occurring? By perception, I don’t mean the content of awareness but the activity of cognizing itself. Within the field of perception, space and locations appear as content, yet perception itself transcends spatial limitations

Now look closely. Is perception happening at a particular time? Does the act of perceiving has a particular duration? Time, like space, arises within perception. Yet perception itself is timeless, indifferent to the ticking of the clock.

How big or small is perception? Can you measure it? Measures and scales are tools of the mind; they arise within perception. Perception itself is immeasurable, edgeless, and infinite.

Perhaps there’s a sense of a “me”—an observer to whom life seems to be happening, located in the body you call yours. But look closely: where is this “me” truly found, and what is it made of?

Upon investigation, the sense of an observer dissolves, revealed as just another thought or image arising within perception. Even the body and mind, which seem to define “you,” are mere appearances within perception.

In direct experience, perception does not happen within the body, nor does the body appear in the world. Instead, it is the world—including the body—that arises within perception.

When beliefs and assumptions are set aside, no separate “you” can be found. All that remains is perception—boundless, impersonal, and free from identity.

In the physical world, everything is composed of matter. Yet what is perception itself made of? Matter, with all its subcategorizations, belongs entirely to the realm of phenomena—the perceived. Perception itself is immaterial, formless, unanalyzable, and beyond qualification.

Big and small, now and then, here and there, good and bad, self and other—all opposites are relative to each other and arise within perception. Yet perception itself transcends duality. It is one, undivided, untouched by the play of opposites.

Perception gives rise to countless forms, objects, and experiences. Yet it eludes all attempts to be described, measured, or located. Perception is everywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing simultaneously.

Every quality—without exception—appears within perception. Yet perception itself stands alone (all-one), uncaused and unconditioned by any of those qualities.

In reality, there is not even an inside nor an outside to perception. All that exists arises as it.

Perception, awareness, consciousness, aliveness—these words are merely pointers to this intimate, ever-present, ordinary yet miraculous essence from which all forms and phenomena arise.

Perception is whole and complete as it is, knowing nothing, wanting nothing, needing nothing but to be what it already is.

Perception manifests as everything, everywhere, always—more familiar than a lover’s whisper, closer than your own heartbeat. You cannot move toward it or away from it, nor lose it or miss it. It is your most intimate nature. It is who you truly are, what everything truly is.

There is only ever this one, undivided perception. Yet, perception itself is nowhere to be found. It cannot perceive itself directly. Even the word “perception” is but an image within perception. All things arise and dissolve within this vast, aware emptiness—this radiant, alive nothingness that you are.

IMF, The Cosmic Tree, 17th of November 2024