Feelings and Perceptions - Thich Nhat Hanh

This was an article that was a requirement for my Ethics class in CJCR 5005. I enjoyed the class taught by Dr. Braswell and I have incorporated this article in my COBH 3330 course. 

Feelings and Perceptions

               I was very glad to see Thich Nhat Hanh as the author of one of the selections in this course book.  I have had the pleasure of reading articles written by the author and had wondered if he would be included in the discussion of nonviolence.  The article included here is a goldmine.

               He begins by discussing the challenge of perception. What we often see is not often add up to true perception. For example, we never see the sun as it truly is. We see the sun always through the past as it takes over 8 minutes for the sunlight to travel the immense distance from its surface to our planet.  As he states, we always see the sun 8 minutes in the past. He then discusses how we often misunderstand one another because of errors in misperceptions.  Misunderstanding is a source of human suffering.

               How true this is, that each of us perceive things differently than others.  It is in this perceiving that differences arise. For example, while I worked in the banking industry, we were always taught that should a robbery happen, that afterwards one of the things that those involved in the robber should not do was to share with one another what they remembered happening.  The idea behind this was that everyone sees the same event slightly askew of how others experience the event. By separating bank employees who were involved in a robbery and questioning them individually, a more complete picture of the event often appears. However, should the employees compare robbery stories with one another beforehand, you will surely lose some of the richness and depth of individual perception, as various persons may doubt what they say in relation to what others say and adapt their recollection of the incident to coincide with what others say.

               We must be one with that we want to understand. It is no longer acceptable to be an observer as are we really that distinct from that which we observe? I see this as moving away from viewing criminals as “others.” If we continue to disassociate ourselves from them and categorize them as other, then we are missing out in relational aspects and in our understanding of what it is to be a criminal and what is crime. However, if we see criminals not as “Others” but as ourselves, would this not change our understanding? Would this not have implications on how we relate to them on a personal and system wide basis? Would this carry over into how we address crime issues? If we see THEM as US what would this do to us as a society?

               I love the story about the dangers of clinging on to truth. I experience this on a personal level. I must be careful not to hold on to my perception of the truth. In fact, I may be so completely wrong as to the nature of what is true and what is not true. If I cling to that which I perceive as truth, then when the truth comes along, I will not recognize it as such and in my obstinance I will continue to be in error. Having an erroneous understanding of something is an impediment in walking the eightfold path, namely being able to have the “right view.”