Faces in Bushes - or are they just illusions?

anataman

We take a lot of things for granted when it comes to what we see and hear or emotionally bond or respond to, such that our interpretation of what we thought we have seen or heard or have reacted to can be completely shattered by learning of others views of the same landscape picture.

For instance, you can look at a tree in a dreamy way and see a face or even a whole phantom waving and lurking in the trees. But someone else will see it as a completely different face or phantom, it may be vomiting or screaming, or not even be a face or phantom at all from their perspective.

Some psychologists will say we are trained to see human faces from birth, and thus will see faces in some abstract features of our environment. Or perhaps our parents shoved their faces in front of us so much as babes & infants that we can't get their images out of our heads and we paste them onto our environment.

How much of our lives are lived as misinterpretations of what is there, and how much of what we see is real?

Hamsaka

All of it is misinterpretation, until we reach enlightenment. That's what I've read and heard, not a personal experience.

On the nice, familiar relative level of experience, our brains are conditoned by evolution to seek patterns and to SEE them whether or not they actually exist. Newborn humans rivet on the human face and focus on the eyes.

Vastmind

I will admit that I sometimes don't partake in threads because I'm not sure I understand what's trying to be said. Is it to be taken literally...or is the person making a metaphor? Is it a koan? hahaha I end up over thinking about threads, and I'm pretty sure it's my fear/insecurity about my intellect.... or lack there of.

But for some reason, this thread 'assured' me I may just have a different perspective.

Do I see faces in the trees? No. Does that mean I don't have anything to add about my own perspective on life and other things? No. I can still learn from listening to other people talking about the faces they see....and what it means/stands for for them.

'How much of our lives are lived as misinterpretations of what is there'?

I would say most.

'and how much of what we see is real'?

It's real to us, right? And then we try to make it real to fit our expectations and wants.

'We take a lot of things for granted when it comes to what we see and hear or emotionally bond or respond to, such that our interpretation of what we thought we have seen or heard or have reacted to can be completely shattered by learning of others views of the same landscape picture.'

I agree. I felt I understood this part...and it stuck out to me in a creative meduim sort of way...

From Peter Walsh... (ways to make your home a haven for visionary thinking)

"Read outside the box. Go buy three magazines you wouldn't normally pick up. They can be about photography, home decor, woodworking-anything outside your usual realm. Leaf through them and discover what other people think about. We control so much of what we encounter-online, on TV, in our daily routines. But letting stuff come at us from left field helps us foster new ways of seeing."

If I'm totally off the mark with this response....and am describing faces no one else sees....

that's ok. .. ... Gratitude.

lamaramadingdong

this?

lobster

First of all people who are creative, crazy, wizarding or familiar with drugs, see faces. That means nothing and is not trying to be judgemental. It is of course a red herring . . .

@anataman said:
How much of our lives are lived as misinterpretations of what is there, and how much of what we see is real?

Good question.

I would suggest all of our lived life is an interpretation, interaction or interdependency. The real is what even God [sorry have to invoke the concept] can not know except vicariously through us. We are the Real experiencing Itself.
How to explain in Buddhist terms? Emptiness is form and let's face it those faces are . . . empty . . .

:ninja: .