Here I am, standing on my feet, walking the ground, looking around. I can see things that appear in front of my eyes. I am able to shift my attention from object to object, bring things in focus and let other dissolve in the fogginess. If I ask you to lift a cup, you can engage with it in different ways. You can look at it from different perspectives, you can feel it with the tips of your fingers, you can taste it, you can evoke a memory that comes with the story about how it ended up in your house. There is an innumerable amount of angles you can explore by just simply looking at a single cut in you hand. Right here and in this present moment the whole universe or material, semantic and symbolic qualities present themselves through your experience. Beautiful, isn’t it?
Of course the cup is a simple example, it is a useful thought as it helps to open the question about various ways we can experience the world. Everything we encounter has the potential to open up and mushroom into a landscape of potentiality. So, what it is that is so easy to do with a cup and so difficult to implement in day to day practice? Well, few things are worth mentioning. First of all, the relationship we have with a cup allows us to have an open-minded and playful attitude while we explore all its facets. A cup doesn’t want anything from us, we are not afraid of it neither we are in competition. There is something valuable in this experience worth noticing to use in other types of encounters. The fact we can do it with a cup proves we can have this open and curious attitude in general. A machinery is in place so once the noise that disrupts the signal turned down we can use it while facing a difficult situation. I am not saying that we should constantly be aware of the potentiality of everything we encounter, it would simply be overwhelming and would get our working memory in overdrive, but the awareness that there is a universe behind every bit we are surrounded with is very important. It expands the amount of possible entry points to whatever we meet on our way. Multiple ways and opportunities always come with less stress, less tension but more lightness.
Now, I’d like to share a secret. You have a superpower. You can shift between different modes of perception and harvest the richness of the world at any time. The only thing that you need is to learn is how to lose the usual perspective of self and de-center. Step out of your body and look at the moment from another angle, observe freely, float around, take any perspective that you want. The “self” can be suffocating, bombarding us with self-preoccupation, insecurity, doubt and self-pity. Stepping outside of one's own mental events can lead to an objective and non-judging stance towards the self and others for that matter. Training yourself to include multiple perspectives and disconnect the actual experience helps to take off the weight and pressure of yourself in day to day situations. It is a skill that requires a little work but it is very easy to incorporate this dispersed perspectival vision in every moment of your day.
Now imagine that while you are looking at the cup, it also looks at you. What can it see? As you go along with your day, try to do this exercise, while looking at things, reverse the perspective and turn your gaze upon yourself. You are not the centre but merely a part of an interconnected organism of appearances. Can you feel it?