Perception

 

Perception is an excitation in the field of Awareness. As we discover in our meditation, the field of Awareness exists in a state of active passivity. Awareness resists nothing and requires nothing. Perception provides an itch and behavior provides the scratching. 

Every creature comes into being with a library of instinctual potentials ingrained in the physical patterns expressed in their existence. These potentials exist to excite the field of Awareness and spur behavior. The exegeses of existence further enrich this library, and the capacity of this library is what is known as "intelligence".

What we see here is that behind all this experiential busyness is the primacy of Pristine Awareness. And that all the activities of living organisms are constellated to ensure the wellbeing of the residence of said nodal of Awareness. We find here that Pristine Awareness is what we are and that all else is window dressing. 

Consciousness emerges with the advent of nervous systems. Nerve systems enable the creation of rich libraries of experienced exegeses, and with the enrichment of this library comes into being the librarian: the Ego. And this Ego, blind to its origins, believes itself to be the author of its tale when it is actually the stepchild of Cosmic Necessity.

Zen is the slap designed to awaken Pristine Awareness to the true state of things.