[Note: The pictured fossil is no April Fools joke. If you’d like to get a good laugh for April Fools Day, once, years ago before i retired, when i worked as a teacher for the multiply handicapped –on April Fools Day — i was putting a slice of pizza into the microwave at work. It was from a sack lunch that my wife, Marla, packed for me. It looked rather sad, for a pizza. I took it out of the aluminum foil wrap and put it on a paper plate and was putting it into the microwave; it looked stale or something! At the last second, before putting it into the microwave, i turned it upside down. It said “Mattel” on the bottom; it was plastic! The fries in the lunch were plastic! The broccoli was plastic! The chocolate in the lunch was plastic!]
Pristine perception takes place when the mind is not tarnished by the methodologies and forms that were manmade and injected into one over time. It is a timeless seeing that is spotless and fresh. Things that were poured into you (over time) by others are all of the past; as such, they — for the most part — are old, residual, and secondhand. A distorted mind does not see clearly; it is swayed by misinformation and tarnished contamination.
One may ask, “How am I to clean my mind to enable it to see clearly?” However, who is going to clean such a mind? Is the “cleaner” going to be something that is somehow magically different from what needs cleaning? Then there are those who say, “Well, I’ll meditate to make my mind still and empty.” Is meditation a mere result, a product (via effort) of a mind that is (itself) full of distortion and fallacies? Any such so-called meditation — fabricated by a distorted mind — will inevitably be an extension of that distortion, no matter how wonderful or relaxing it may feel. Most human brains are so wrapped up in the deception of a supposedly dominating “center” or “me” — a supposed “center” which intrinsically creates false separation and supposed control — that any action or inaction that is created generally extends the deception… and indifference and ignorance inevitably continues. (The old, distorted instrument cannot be fundamentally changed by perpetually clinging — even subtly — to the old, distorted mental misusages.)
Any movement or effort of a distorted mind clinging to information of the past limits it to what was poured into it by (constrained) sequential events in time. Distortion and psychological time exist together as one. Once adulthood is reached, insight, love, and profound intelligence are not a matter of psychological time. Physical and evolutionary time are another story.
How do you look at life? Is it seen through (or “with”) a screen of learned separation?
The photograph is of a proto-primate jaw (with a premolar and two molars). There is a good possibility that it is from what evolved into you and your family… or, at the very least, that it is your distant cousin. (Take a good look at great, great grandmother!) 🙂 The photograph is of a post-Purgatorius species that evolved from Purgatorius following the Cretaceous mass extinction. Mammals — after the mass extinction — began becoming larger, and this one is no exception. It is from the Fort Union Formation of Montana and is 62 to 63 million-years-old. The entire jaw is a little over 5 centimeters long (or 1.96 inches). The teeth are jet black due to millions of years of permineralization, wherein local minerals are permeated into the teeth. See the following for more information: http://www.paleocene-mammals.de/primates.htm
Proto-primate jaw, post-Purgatorius Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
Well Tom, no matter where you go, there you are. I did a 180 in life a few years back. Just about everything I thought was true politically, religiously, and socially, changed in an instant. Like a switch flip, all the things I thought I believed, were not me at all. They were things I had been told that didn’t jive with the things I had learned and observed. I had been conflicted for years, but had let it rest in the back of my mind. When I mustered the integrity to look at the world through the eye of my own knowledge and learning and observations, I had a decision to make. I was at a crossroads and my choice was to venture away from the old me. A moment of clarity. Alone in the Panama jungle I found the real me. No outside pressures, no coaching, no explanations from anyone, I decided to be myself. Finally. What a relief and life has been a kickbutt experience since that day. Am I right? I don’t know everything, but I do know I’m right in the head and right for me. Superb post Tom. Very thought provoking. Thanks.
“No matter where you go, there you are.”
Wherever i go, there I am not! 🙂
So good that you have changed and are changing. Keep going deeper (without, of course, merely supporting some “separate me” who is journeying). Most people don’t even come a little bit close to where you have gone already. Really, it is a pathless path and the deepest intelligence and joy is to go beyond a separate traveler.
Thanks much, Jim, for the very kind comments! 🙂
Honey, whether you know it or not, you are still eating plastic. It looks like a cross between plastic and dog food. You should let your wife cook for you more often. I promise not to poison you.
The food does seem worse than the dogs’ food, doesn’t it! 🙂
If anyone is reading this besides Marla, the reason i don’t let her cook for me any longer is that, due to complications with neck vertebra surgery, she can no longer eat; she gets her nutrition through a gastrosomy tube. No way am i going to make her cook for me!
I agree that our perception, even along with meditation is always distorted by our life experiences, even though we may be on a path of mindfulness, perception is constantly seeing life from where we are at the moment. I worked with a woman who was a self-appointed spiritual leader who claimed to be focused on unity to her congregation, however in life outside of her practice she always claimed to be better than and above everyone to me. I left that group and have since realized that we are all doing the best we can based on where we are at in our life. For me, when I see something about myself that is narrow or separate, then I look for ways to improve my perception by putting myself in someone else’s shoes. By the way I love the fossil image, I have many that I took at the dinosaur center that I just love to look at.
You can’t be better than everyone else if you realize that you are everyone else. So good, Laura, that you left that group and are perceiving without clinging to someone’s ramshackle practice.
The best path is no path. There has to be a separate “I” to be on a path (which is so primitive).
Thanks much about the fossil. It’s here at our house.
The April joke was really great, Thomas, have a nice Easter, regards Mitza
She’s still at it! Exclaimed how it was heavily snowing outside… and when i went to see, there was not a single flake! 🙂 Have a great Easter, Mitza, and don’t eat too many chocolate bunnies! (I had my organic Coa-Coa Bunnies for breakfast!)
:))
You have the most interesting posts. I’m always anxious to open them and see what you have to say! Thank you!
So good to read, Susan! 🙂 If one or two serious people would actually get something out of them, that would be enough! Most don’t want to be bothered and go on in the same, old ways!
Thank you very much! 🙂
Be yourself- everyone else is taken! Great story.
Yes, and we (if we are ever to go beyond what is sorely primitive and foolish) must go much deeper than that… past “self-ish-ness” into a realm beyond ignorant separatism and isolation! 🙂
Marla sure played a cute joke on you for April Fool’s Day. Hmmm – much of the delight of pizza is that melted cheese after all, not plasticized of course. Those molars are pretty awesome too. One of my favorite museum exhibits has always been involving dinosaurs. I always enjoyed seeing anything prehistoric and thinking how special these archeological finds really are. In college I had a professor who taught ancient history. It was a class I had to take for my curriculum. He had a dentist friend at the University of Michigan and they were collaborating on a book about a mummy that was discovered and how that mummy had teeth that had cavities, a bridge and a jaw malformation. It was fascinating. The mummy’s name was Pum II (sp?) He brought in slides for our class to see their work to date. It made what could have been a boring class very interesting.
It’s a little late for bridge-work when you are 5,000 years old! Tee-hee! 🙂
I collect fossils locally (from quarries) and occasionally buy fossils online… like the jaw.
There are occasionally very high quality polished dinosaur bone pieces on eBay that one can get for a very reasonable price. Do yourself a favor and buy a couple (then get a big magnifying glass and see the magic)! The chambers and bone air cells — they stored air in their bones — are still there preserved after millions of years (only now filled with permineralized colorful deposits of minerals). Look up “Polished Dinosaur Bone” or “Dinosaur Gem Bone” on eBay; you might begin a neat, new hobby! 🙂
I will definitely look that up. I have an interesting small flat rock in my garden. I will take a picture of it and use it in the blog somehow to show you. Years ago, a former neighbor of mine used to have a place up North and he would bring back driftwood and rocks for my garden. This one has a fossil imprint in it – very interesting. We always wondered what it was. It doesn’t mean it was prehistoric, but your imagination runs wild sometimes. I’ll see how close I can get to it without it being blurry, then incorporate it into a post – maybe my next birthday … and speaking of old fossils. 🙂 I went to King Tut’s exhibit in Toronto at the art museum. I just Googled to see what year and it was 1979. I knew it was either late 70s/early 80s as my grandmother, who lived in Toronto, was still alive at the time. I went with my aunt who lived in Toronto as well, and she got the advance tickets. It was so impressive and interesting. I talked about it for days afterward. P.S. – Poor Pum II … too many gumballs back in the day.
Tom – something niggled at me after I wrote my reply to you a few minutes ago. I seemed to remember I wrote about this rock, and I searched for “fossil” in my blog and sure enough I did. I misspoke myself … it was boss who brought me the rock … his wife has a family cabin near Wiarton, Ontario. My neighbor was always bringing me garden treasures so attributed it to him. I know, I’ll revisit the post on its 5-year anniversary. My earlier posts when I began this blog in 2013 didn’t have pictures, but the story is the same … I talked about dinosaurs and dinosaur pluots of all things.
https://lindaschaubblog.net/2013/06/26/268/
Interesting stuff! 🙂 If you ever do try to get any of that dinosaur bone from eBay… make sure it is “polished” (and pretty-color ones are best). 🙂
Lovely