We carry around many brain filters. They are capable of letting in certain ideas more freely than others. In the digital world filters can block access to certain online materials. Seeing the world without filters is almost impossible.
This might be the reason why LSD-25 was so popular during the 1960s. We hoped to see the world without filters maybe to see it with child-like eyes. But there were still filters left in our brain. And we could even add more filters later on in life.
In Buddhism and especially Zen, the filter problem is a big deal because when we enter the temple, so to speak, our entire brain is somewhat over-filtered. Much of it works against the context of Buddhism but includes, nevertheless, our expectations of what Buddhism is about in our filtered world.
This condition in the long run only helps with our gradual absorption into the world of appearances which, naturally, runs counter to Buddhism.
This all comes down to the question of how do we see true reality minus the filters? Even using our imagination we are presented with the problem of filtering and it's a deep problem. It seems to me that in the beginning we have to bring up filters but then see through them. This is not as easy as it looks.
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