Let’s analyze how an object of attachment appears to us, let’s say chocolate cake. First you see the shape and the color. That’s instant. The eye consciousness perceives shape and color, that triggers instantly the mental consciousness, where the memory is stored from having eaten and seen and touched and tasted this thing before.
Up comes the label “chocolate cake” — and it’s accurate. It is a chocolate cake. You even could be a professional cook and just by looking at it, triggering your memory and your knowledge, you could actually deduce that it’s a really good chocolate cake. That’s a relative reality, nothing wrong with that. That’s a fact.
So far, so good. None of this is delusion yet. None of these thoughts that have arisen instantly in the mind are delusions. It is a fact it’s chocolate cake; it’s a fact it’s round or triangle or whatever; it’s a fact that it’s a good one. And pleasure is triggered in your mind because of familiarity with it. But that’s not delusion either.
The trouble is what also is triggered instantly along with all of this is attachment. The second the pleasure arises, attachment kicks in. And it’s so powerful it permeates all the other things, so the overall experience is attachment. And that means instantly you see it, it appears self-existent, out there, having this inherent deliciousness, like as if deliciousness is a component of the cake, as if when you made it you put a spoonful of deliciousness along with the flour and chocolate and eggs.
It’s like, in other words – you check – it looks delicious to you out there, doesn’t it? And you believe it a hundred percent, right? You believe it. You don’t ever doubt that. In other words, you don’t think for one split second that the delicious cake is a story that your mind is making up. We don’t think that.
But that’s what Buddha’s saying. That’s what Buddha’s saying. That actually, we are making up an elaborate story. We can’t argue that it’s not a cake. It is a cake, relatively speaking; there’s a relative level here. It is a cake, it’s not a banana. It is a well-made cake, not an ugly one. These are facts. There’s no argument about that at a relative level.
Let’s say you get really sick if you eat chocolate cake. When you see it, it’ll be a whole other story. The eye consciousness perceives shape and color; it will trigger the label called chocolate cake; it will trigger the memory of having had it; it will trigger the disgust and the horrible experience that was triggered by having it. Right? The overall experience that you will have will be then formed by the aversion that is triggered instantly. Now the cake appears to you as something disgusting. It appears from its own side, out there, inherently in and of itself, disgusting, as if you put a spoonful of disgustingness into it when you made it. That’s how it appears to you.
Each of us believes our own picture, don’t we? It’s a picture because clearly the cake can’t be simultaneously disgusting and delicious, can it? Like it can’t be simultaneously chocolate and carrot cake. It’s either chocolate or carrot cake. We’ve both got it correct. Check, check, it is chocolate cake. We’ve got that right. But, then one person puts a lie onto it and says it’s ugly; another person puts another lie onto it and says it’s delicious – and they are the stories made up by the mind.
We know this: as our mothers would tell us – these clichés that actually have such profound truth – “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Deliciousness is in the eye of the beholder. Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. It is so obvious.
Of course, we don’t think it’s like this. We can hear it now, rationally. But, because we’re brainwashed by our attachment, we just sink into this view, automatically; it’s our default mode. There’s no questioning. We’re brainwashed. We’re totally programmed to see it like this.
And then of course, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “Bad enough that you see it in a way. . .” – whatever story you put on to it – “Bad enough you see it this way, but the worst part is you believe it’s true.”
That’s the point. That’s what keeps us locked into samsara. So the trick is to catch that and, as Rinpoche says, to realize that “everything is your own karmic appearance.”
If we practice this, our life will change!