The mind, for many, is incessantly measuring things, comparing, acquiring, accumulating and labeling.  Can the mind, without a continuing effort — which isn’t laziness — simply perceive without all those things habitually going on mentally?  Measuring and labeling have their place but there is also a time when they are not necessary and, if still used, are merely habitual and robotic in essence.  Total separation, between the “perceiver” and “that which is perceived,” demands measurement, requires a type of psychological wall and resistance.   Resistance occurs as an opposing force.  If you separate yourself from all other life forms, that is a form of resistance, a manifestation of conflict.   Indifference and conflict go hand in hand; there is so much of it in the world these days.

Perceiving without separation is not what most people are involved with.  Perceiving with (and “as”) the standard norms (that were taught), because of the conflict, because of the resistance, because of the robotic repetitiveness of it all, leads to depression and psychological suffering; then many turn to drugs or alcohol as an escape (which really is no escape at all).  There is an order that goes beyond all this.  Mere measurement does not take one to that order.  It is not within the realm of accumulating or acquiring, (yet so many are willing to pay money for instructions or systems to get there).  

Its beauty includes its being beyond mere accumulation and “getting.”  You can’t obtain what is beyond mundane getting, having, and measuring.  Real love is not merely a product of accumulation; however, if one is very fortunate, non-fragmented, and serious, it is there (beyond measure).  If one merely remains within the mental realm of getting, having, and measuring, one will stay miserable and secondhand (though one may erroneously think that one is doing marvelously).  Deep awareness and profound psychological transformation are not a matter of time.  Measuring and accumulation take time.

[A variety of crust fungus, Milk White Toothed Polypore (Irpex lacteus) seems to have “teeth” that, in actually, are tubes or pores in the spore-bearing surface which break apart with age and become tooth-like.  This is a very small fungus; it was on a small, dead tree branch; the pictured portion was around one centimeter long.]

Milk White Toothed Polypore Fungus… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018