the normal awareness that guides our everyday activities is actually quite cluttered. we generally go about our days with minds filled with ideas of what we want, and how things should be, and with reactive responses to what we like and do not like. it's as if we are wearing different pairs of glasses without knowing it, and have no idea that these filters obscure and distort our perceptions...but when our perception shifts to meditative or steady awareness, it is no longer narrowed by memory and expectation; whatever we see, touch, taste, smell, or hear has greater clarity and sharpness, and enlivens our interactions. 

yongey mingyur rinpoche
in love with the world


(i've felt this, the clutter, the drag of memory, the persistent want, the frustration of reactivity. i've looked at a dog and known the dog isn't doing what i'm doing, and i've felt the shift to dog awareness, and felt continuity with the dog and the shared world and my own life. i've felt life.)