“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
Arthur Schopenhauer held this view, and it is so very true that we project the external world against the background of our internal worlds. Someone once said that the more you know, the more things you can bring together. If we can widen our perceptual fields we may even reach a stage where we can include that which everybody has in common.
In this regard, Ajahn Sucitto referred to commonalities such as the disliking of pain, the appreciation of pleasure, the communal want of safety and of friendliness. The process is a widening from the “I” sense to the “WE” sense, which may help to generate sensitivity to ethics and compassion for all. The wider your perceptual field, the more skilful it will be because, as I said, it will enable you to fit so much more things into that perceptive field. This will result in less conflict, less division, and much less bias in the world.
Confucius was right when he said that everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it, and I believe that this is due to narrow perceptive fields of vision. In “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, William Blake wrote:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
Broaden your perceptiveness, so you can see,
that this world comprises not of an “I” but of a “WE”.
A narrow field of vision doesn’t contribute to ameliorating
a way of life that is actually very debilitating.
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