Book Giveaway: I won a softcover version of this book and much as I crave keeping it I will practice the essence of Meditation on Perception by offering it to a randomly chosen reader who leaves a comment on this post, Twitter, or Facebook. Giveaway closes October 17, 2014.

Meditation on Perception (Wisdom Publications) by Bhante Gunaratana is a gem of wisdom delivered in Bhante G.’s simple, clear style. Those of us who study the teachings of the Buddha have an almost facile response to the cause of suffering. It is craving, which is fed by perception; dukkha arises from the way in which we perceive the world and its events. True enough and this book unravels our misperceptions about perception.

(I)n its own nature perception is pure and clean. Yet it is also quite delicate and vulnerable to being distorted by the virus of concepts.

In my own practice, I’ve come to have an ambivalent relationship with my perceptions. A necessary evil in my mind, I engage them with narrow trust and a wide berth. Yet Bhante G.’s unwrapping of the process and mechanisms of perception reveal a subtle working of perception as the language between body and mind. This means a wider trust and more intimate relationship is called for if we are to be guided well by it.

As our mindfulness becomes more stable, we discover that the entire Dhamma is inscribed in our body and mind.

Meditation on Perception is exactly what it says: perception is the object of our meditation with the intention of fully understanding how the six senses (thoughts are one of them) feed us information from inner and outer sources. While the Girimananda Sutta, Buddha’s teachings on perception, forms the primary framework many other relevant suttas are tucked quietly into the chapters exposing us to a wide range of the Buddha’s teachings. Bhante points out that despite the initial purity of perception “concepts, ideas, opinions, beliefs, and many other categories of conditioning, have influenced our perception. In essence, our perception has become distorted. (ebook location 444)” We fall into the mirage of believing there is a fixed self, knotted by desire for permanence and suffering, and living through a preferential mind that leans into pleasurable experiences.

The good news is that perceptions can arise and cease because the causes and conditions that give rise to them also arise and cease. The tough news is that other perceptions take effort to bring into line. To borrow a phrase from neuropsychology, concepts that arise together, wire together. This unwiring takes effort, practice, and unrelenting diligence. Bhante offers several paths of healing distorted perceptions, all of which are applications of teachings from the Ānāpānasati and Satipaṭṭhāna Suttas. By cultivating awareness of breath and mindfulness, we begin to see how the distorted perception self-generate. When we understand that that tainted mind seeks validation from from inner and outer experiences to reinforce its perception, we can also understand the necessity for guarding the sense doors, developing presence to what is arising, and developing patience and loving-friendliness (metta) for our experience.

The ten healing perceptions, impermanence, nonself, unattractiveness, danger, abandoning, dispassion, cessation, nondelight in the entire world, impermanence in all conditioned phenomena, and mindfulness of breathing, are the path through this tangle of distorted perceptions. Meditations on these healing factors disentangle us from our preferences that world meet our needs in a precise, self-centered way. This profound attachment is the fundamental cause of our suffering and the Girimananda Sutta offers hope of release.

What I truly treasured in Bhante’s writings is the use of language that is natural and therefore accessible. Terms that tend to trigger argumentation in my head are rendered in ways that reveal their meaning without any esotericism. “Aimlessness,” one of the three gateways to liberation, is simply “wishlessness.” Disenchantment does not mean disappointed rejection; it is a stance of mature realization of what truly is. The five aggregates each “consists of three minor moments: the rising moment, the living moment, and the passing away moment.”

The living moment.

The delight in the book is also the opportunity to re-engage with the four foundations of mindfulness as well as a number of meditation instructions which place attention on perception, mind, impermanence, and liberation.

This is a welcome addition to Bhante’s prolific series of books that have brought the wisdom of the Buddha to our hearts.