From: Mindfulness in Plain English

An excerpt from Mindfulness in Plain English:

 

Our human perceptual habits are remarkably stupid in some

ways. We tune out 99% of all the sensory stimuli we actually receive, and we solidify the remainder into discrete mental objects. Then we react to those mental objects in programmed habitual ways. An example: 

 

There you are, sitting alone in the stillness of a peaceful night. A dog barks in

the distance. The perception itself is indescribably beautiful if you bother to examine it.

Up out of that sea of silence come surging waves of sonic vibration. You start to hear the lovely complex patterns, and they are turned into scintillating electronic stimulations within the nervous system. The process is beautiful and fulfilling in itself. We humans tend to ignore it totally. Instead, we solidify that perception into a mental object. We paste a mental picture on it and we launch in

to a series of emotional and conceptual reactions to it. "There is that dog again. He is always barking at night. What a nuisance"