Filter and Screen

Filter:  To remove or separate (solid particles, impurities, etc) from a fluid by means of a filter.
Screen: Anything that functions to shield, protect, conceal, or shelter in the manner of a curtain.


The good, the bad, and the ugly indifferent.  There's a lot of truth to the idea that we apply a filter of our own making to everything we experience.  This is bad and it is to be avoided.  This is good and it is to be pursued.  This way of experiencing life isn't reality -- this is Horseface Reality.  I judge and categorize instead of letting life wash over me and flow on by, bemused but disinterested.


One of the little exercises that can be used in meditation is to try to drop any preconceptions of noises that we hear.  I should say that it's not a bad idea to try to be in a somewhat quiet space.  Don't pick the machine room at AK Steel Processing Corporation as your meditation spot.  Anyway, the idea is to quit trying to block the noises out, first of all, then quit trying to place each noise in a neat little category.  It's remarkably difficult to do.  It shows me how much I try to control the world that I'm in.  I hear a motorcycle, and I imagine the kind of person on the motorcycle and I place this person in a category and I picture the motorcycle and I wonder how the rider can get away with driving around all day on an unmuffled vehicle and so on and so on.


I usually don't look into what is really there in front of me.  I see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and I mistake those mental objects as reality.  Man,  I didn't have any idea what reality was when I was drunk and stoned and I still don't have any idea what it is.  I'm not even that sure what I'm talking about right now.