Access to Reality

Within store consciousness, we have direct access to reality, to suchness, to things as they are. In every one of us lies the basic wisdom that can directly touch reality itself. Nevertheless, we often feel attachment or aversion based on prior experience. We classify what we perceive according to the boxes we already have in our store consciousness. We compare the present with what we have experienced in the past and we seem to recognize it. We paint the new information with the old colors we already have inside us. This is why most of the time we don’t have direct access to reality, to things as they are.

Excerpt From
How to See
Thich Nhat Hanh