3.1 Why should you gain detachment from the endless stimuli of this?

That in its conditioned form, embodied in you who are reading these words, is entirely, and without possibility of exception, enmeshed in illusory perceptions of reality. The experience and understanding of reality gained through the five senses is only valid relative to the focus of perception. That is to say, your understanding of experience, based only on your five senses, is specific to yourself and so illusory. In the final analysis of the enlightened mind, all experience based only on sensual information is known to lead inevitably to suffering.

This understanding – that your experience of perceptible reality is an illusion – will only come once the illusion has been transcended, once you have awaken from your long sleep of ignorance of the nature of reality. The illusion can only be broken through attaining detachment from the incessant stimuli of perceptible reality. This chapter teaches the meditative practices which lead to detachment from stimuli and to the freedom and release of the mind in its enlightened state.

In its unenlightened form, your mind is continuously distracted from its inherent stillness by the apparently external and apparently objective nature of sensual stimuli. The unenlightened mind is deceived by the apparently external and objective nature of physical reality. You will transcend the illusion that reality consists of objective material phenomenon only when you have realised your mind’s inherent stillness and quiescence.

Until this detachment from stimuli is realised, and you transcend the illusory nature of both the individual sense of ‘I’ and of objective reality, you will remain locked in the karmically reactive level of reality. That is to say, through the activity created by the interaction of karma with your thoughts and actions, you will remain bound to the endless cycle of birth, ageing, suffering and death. You will realise the final stage of enlightenment, from either a secular or a religious point of view, through practice, with unwavering determination, of the meditative techniques taught in this book. This will enable you to transcend stress, fear and suffering, and will bring, in their place, a genuine and lasting peace of mind transcending all conditions.