The World Is Not What We See, It Is the Way We See

Do we see reality the way it really is? A man asks how to break down the illusion of duality— maya — that is taught to us in the materialist paradigm. Rupert replies that it is important to understand that the actual experience of seeing does not change — the Buddha would see the same appearance we see. Thus, it is not the illusion that disappears after awakening to the truth of the nature of reality, it is the ignorance — ignoring the one reality and imagining it is two: self and other, seer and seen.

Don't try to break the illusion down, try to break the ignorance down. As long as we are alive, embodied, we experience the world through the senses. It will always appear as a multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves at a distance from ourself. The appearance remains, but your interpretation of the appearance changes as the old model of subject-object, self and other, is replaced with this new model of unity and oneness — that all is the one shared being. Once you have that understanding, you look back at the world and see through the appearance. The appearance doesn't change, but it becomes transparent. The world is not what we see, it is the way we see.