Okay The basic question here is, "Why is it so difficult just to see things as they are?"
Perceptions. When Rosemary talks about the Five Aggregates in the Satipattana Sutta we have something called "Perception". I put my glasses up in the air, and all of you perceive what it is. You all know these are eyeglasses. If I hold this cup with a cover up, you know what it is. However, if I only hold up the cover, would you know what it is? Maybe not, this is a little trickier, but when you see it on top of the glass, then you know what it is.
If you don't know it's the cover for a glass, the mind starts to think, "Well, what does it look like? What do I think it is?" The mind goes back in its own kind of "memory base", to think of something that looks like this. It does this in order to then put a perception, a label, on what you think this is. Our perceptions are all based on our past conditioning. Every single one of our perceptions is just based on what we've been taught; what we've read; what we've listened to, everything's that's happened to us in our life.
For example, for most Westerners if they're sitting waiting for dinner and somebody brings out a nice pizza, people are happy. For the Thais - a lot of them - if you bring out a pizza, they are looking for the rice. They don't want that pizza at all. Past conditioning.
So our perceptions - even though the pizza is exactly the same thing - my perception is that it tastes nice, it'll be pleasant; for many others, their perception is that it's yucky and they don't want it at all. This is all based on our past conditioning. This is what makes everything so difficult, to see things as they really are. The pizza itself is bread, cheese, tomato; it's a meal, sometimes healthy, sometimes not, depending on what's put in it but it's just a meal. It's food to keep our body alive and healthy and so on. If that's our understanding when we're looking at the pizza, then we're actually seeing the pizza for what it is. If we look at the pizza and go, "Oh, that's yummy," "Oh, I want more," then those are extra thoughts which are clouding the reality of the pizza. Our desires, our cravings, our aversions and everything, that's going to cloud our perception of things.
"To see things as they are," this phrase is often used in Buddhism. It's so hard because we're clouded by what we want things to be, or what we think things are. Now, when I was 20, I thought people my age now were, kind of, you know, they're not "with it". Now that I'm 58, I look at 20-year-old's and think, "Aren't they so immature!" I'm perceiving them from my position; when I'm 20, I'm perceiving who I am in a different way. In this way we're putting labels around things, we're putting ideas around reality. Some 20-year-old's, of course, might be mature. Many aren't. Some 58-year-old's might be "out of it", many of them are not "out of it". So we have to throw away the "story" we put around people, or any object at all.
We have to put away our pre-conceived ideas about things, to actually meet somebody brand new - "A person as a fellow human being". Can we actually meet people "brand new"? Or do we meet people and immediately think, "They look like my uncle, I don't like my uncle"? It's often that we put a story around everybody we meet, and even the people we know. When I walk in to the hall, you expect me to do certain things. On Day 9 morning in every retreat I say, "What if I jump off the table and start kicking, hitting and poking people?" It would be totally out of your expectations, yet it might happen.
Can you be ready for something like that to happen? Can you be ready for Steve, maybe, just to fall over dead, right here, in the middle of my sentence? You expect me to stay alive. You expect yourselves to stay alive. Why is it we expect everybody to stay alive? Because we're not reflecting on death enough. If we reflect on death more often, we will see reality as it is. Why is it so many people are shocked when their loved one dies? They are not reflecting on reality enough.
So, to "see things as they are", we have to let go of our wrong perceptions. In order to let go of wrong perceptions, we have to be more clear with what we are seeing, right here. The mental noting is a tremendous technique. It helps us to, "see things just as they are".
We're sitting in the hall, our eyes are closed, and the birds start singing. What are you going to use as your mental note when you're distracted by the birds singing? Do you use the mental note, "birds singing"? Because that's not the reality for you. The reality for you is just "hearing". That's all that's happening to you, you're just hearing. The bird is out there, fine. Relative reality, we know it's a bird out there singing, but while we're sitting in the hall with our eyes closed, all that's happening to us is that we're hearing the sound. The minute we say "bird", that's not the reality for us, that's the reality for the bird.
We're eating our food. It tastes pleasant. What are you supposed to note? You can be noting "chewing". You can be noting, "tasting", "sweet", "sour", "hot", whatever. The minute your start thinking about how delicious it is, you are off away from the reality of it, because "delicious" is not a reality. If pizza is "delicious" for me, but it's not "delicious" for the Thai sitting next to me, then "delicious" is not a reality of the pizza. But if it's "sweet" or if it's "salty", then it's going to be sweet and salty for me, and it's going to be sweet and salty for others.
So, in our formal meditation practice, breaking down our perceptions to be closer and closer to reality, is what's going to help us, hopefully, to see things more truly as they are.