Practice alters perception

Practice changes how we attend to the world and what we see.

We learn to attune to subtlety, and in doing so we notice more of what is already happening inside and around us. Some things leap into relief and others fade into irrelevance.

For example, one day you start meditating. You learn to pay attention to the changing nature of things, whilst recognising your tendency to conceptualise your experience. This takes time and patience—in short, practice.

But with persistence, your view of reality starts to shift—all of these previously solid, unchanging elements (time, emotion, self and other) begin to lose their solidity. You see this in real-time, for yourself, and you can’t unsee it.

It’s not an exaggeration to say the world looks differently on the other side. And you then respond differently to this changed world. This is because our perception is so intimately related to what we perceive. These are two ends of one open-ended activity.

Perception is not an inert physiological process: it is active, living and constructive.

Self-knowledge is another key aspect of this because less inner conflict allows you to see the world more clearly. If you’re fighting an inner war, you’re ability to appreciate what’s going on around you is invariably tainted. If all of your bandwidth is consumed in internal narration, you’ve fewer resources to dedicate to the kind of devoted attention that practice requires.

Practice isn’t just an activity: it changes how we relate to ourselves and the world. It changes what we see and who we are.