Perceiving is one thing;

the issue is what we do next.

The five senses, or first five consciousnesses, are sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. They enable us to accurately know what is being viewed, heard, smelled, etc. For awakened beings, these five senses coupled with innate wisdom enable them to interact correctly with their environment and everything and everyone in it. Then they stop there.

But we unawakened beings careen blithely into the sixth consciousness. This is the discriminatory mind, let’s say, the mind of black or white, different or like me.

From here, things get worse as we instantly lurch into the seventh consciousness, which attaches. This is the push-pull mind that attaches to ideas of I dislike or I like, etc.

Awakened beings stop at the point where they perceive and interact correctly. For them, there is no discriminating or attaching. Sadly, we’re not there yet. And so, we discriminate and attach, and can end up causing terrible suffering. For ourselves in the future. And even worse, for others now.

Discriminatory seeds and habits
have been planted within each of us.
We need to remind ourselves of this before acting.

We discriminate all the time. Hearing or seeing something or someone, we instantly identify what we perceive with its accepted name or term.

If we see a person, the familiar vocabulary imbedded in our store consciousness springs forward: male, female, tall, short. In a flash, we move from recognition to assessing: attractive, talks too much, etc.

Pigeonholing by skin color (followed by the identifier of “like me” or “not like me”), religion (followed by “same as mine” or “not mine”), education level, sexual orientation, na- tionality.

If, in our cultivation, we haven’t found much success in stopping our biased discriminat- ing, we need to at least catch such thoughts before they lead to regrettable action. Discriminating thoughts can be dangerous. Both to others and ourselves. So as soon as we detect them, we need to halt. While still at the perception stage, we need to act appropriately, without discrimination.

I know what I'm doing. 

It’s the other person who doesn’t. 

I had been staying at one of our centers when the day turned rainy. Close to lunchtime, people began arriving via the long walkway. I noticed a young woman who was holding an umbrella and wearing flip-flops.

She’ll get her feet wet. And maybe catch a cold with this chilly wind! I was thinking this when I remembered that I too had worn sandals to lunch.

But I had good reason! I just need to go a few paces until I’m under the awning. Just a few feet. So I was entirely justified. She’s not.

Thank goodness, all this silliness only lasted a few seconds before I caught myself. But we perform this fault-finding comparison all the time. We do the same seemingly incorrect thing, but our own behavior is justified.  I have a good reason, he doesn’t. I know what I’m doing, she does not. And so we observe, differentiate, critique, and judge. Imagine how much more pleasant it would be just to observe and stop there. Or at least observe and conclude something pleasant.

As in, Great hot pink flip-flops!