The Lenses We Live Through: Exploring Perception & the Questions you're not Asking.

The following gives an introduction into the philosophical frame & The Method that characterizes Luna's work.

What if your greatest source of clarity wasn't found in acquiring better answers? 

What if your strongest conviction deserves your deepest inquiry?

What if what feels true is not a reflection of what is true?

What if your greatest problem was the doorway to your greatest opportunity?

Such questions turn our assumptions on their head. Like the branch of a tree that suddenly comes into contact with a wall, the branch starts to grow in a different direction. Similarly, obstacles in our own life can be met in this way.

Sometimes, however, we are not so willing to change directions. We would rather find a way to bulldoze through the wall, adamant on moving forward this way. And yet even if we manage to knock down that which stands in our way, somehow those walls keep appearing. Perhaps those walls are trying to tell us something - something about the way we come up against resistance. Is the wall a barrier, or a call for a redirection?

In recent times, I have moved from being an 'answers' person to a 'questions' person. I have realized that more often than not, answers are given pre-maturely, before we have given ourselves the proper time to really see from what place we are looking. Desperation will have us grabbing at whatever answers come most quickly. Fear will have us grabbing at what makes the biggest promises. The quality of the answers we get are coherent with the quality of mind that is doing the looking.

While in the past I took pride in offering ready-made answers, today what I find most beneficial is a process of investigation - a process that does not rush, but takes time to observe the very state of mind from which we are making sense of our experience. What lens are we looking through and how does this particular lens shape what we notice and form ideas? Just as a fish does not recognize water as water, we often do not recognize the conditions that shape our perception. 

Because our views shape our entire orientation in life, it's worthwhile considering the degree by which our perception determines what we notice and what we overlook; what we consider meaningful and what holds little or no importance; what we fear and what we most desire, and even what we believe is possible. All of these conditions of mind are not fixed. They are up for review at any time.

Despite the far reaching impact of [distorted] perception, it is not common practice to examine the way we look at things. When our underlying views remain unquestioned, our interpretations can easily get skewed, becoming a source of confusion, conflict, and turmoil in our lives.

As such, the process of investigation allows us to take stock of the unevaluated assumptions, stories, and inherited ideologies we have accumulated over the course of our life and air them out to dry. After seeing what's there, we may inquire into which of these habitual ways of thinking we want to put back in the closet of our mind or gift to wind.

A quality of mind that takes great skill to master is that of equanimity or impartial observation. Where the mind is not divided between evaluative concepts of good and bad; right and wrong; mental energy can be distributed evenly across the frame of mind. The effect of this is a quality of spaciousness, most easily noticed when contrasted with a mind that darts from one concept to the next but struggles to land in the space between them.

As equanimity speaks to an evenness of mind, we could say that any state of mind that is not even, is pulling our attention in any number of directions. This is how our perception gets skewed, twisted and contorted, like a ball of thread that gets tangled and pulled every which way. In this process of inquiry, we explore what tendencies of mind are responsible for pulling our perception in certain directions. With curiosity, we explore what it's like to incline ourselves in ways we would not normally steer towards. We meet resistance with a question instead of an answer.

How Insecurities Shape Meaning

We all have certain vulnerabilities and insecurities. These insecurities inevitably find their way into our experience as a result of triggering situations. Instead of viewing the situation as responsible for making us vulnerble, we may see the sitation as a stage whereby that inner vulnerability is made known.

Take this example:

Someone who fears dogs may be convinced that dogs are dangerous.

This example highlights how one's experience, in this case - fear, is less a reflection of the conditions of reality than it is a window into a held insecurity that has formed the belief: dogs are dangerous. It is this held idea that is what validates and justifies one's experience of fear.

But as we know, just because your heart rate goes up when you see a dog does not automatically mean the dog is in fact dangerous. The experience of fear only proves that there is fear. When our experience serves as evidence of a 'truth', we stop investigating. Because we believe that our fear is proof enough of this so-called fact, we then end up contributing to the very outcomes we fear:

Walking past a dog, you become fearful and start moving more abruptly. The dog senses your fear, gets nervous by your sudden movements and starts barking. You then interpret the barking as proof of your mythology—dogs really are dangerous.

The person in this scenario fails to see their own behaviour - only that of the dogs'.

Reflecting in this way, how many of your experiences can you actually rely on as an accurate record of reality?

Perhaps experience is less a product of truth than a product of the identity, assumptions, and meanings we continue to uphold.

Through understanding that experience itself is the culmination of countless unevaluated thoughts and beliefs, there is good reason to investigate whether unpleasant or undesirable experiences can be reduced—or even avoided—not through suppression, but through getting to know what narratives keep our vulnerabilites alive. In this way, confusion, conflict, or mental anguish are not merely problems to solve, but opportunities to be investigated.

The Method

In this inquiry-based method, I focus less on what one believes, and more on how particular filters of perception contribute both to the quality of our experience and what we believe is true. From my experience, truth always leads to a more liberating experiene of oneself. This is how we know whether our 'true' stories really are true by the quality of mind and heart they bring.

One of the biggest incentives for holding onto certain beliefs is that we keep on getting to be who we are. And we only want to keep on being who we are because we have failed to notice the drawbacks of remaining as who we are.

Through inquiry we ask, does remaining attached to certain thoughts and beliefs bring me into a greater experience of freedom, or am I left defending, ruminating or feeling stuck?

At a certain point our views can prevent us from seeing clearly, not because the views we have adopted are "wrong," but rather our attachment to such views becomes its own form of imprisonment. In many cases, we don't choose the lens we look through - we inherent it. Therefore, how can we really know the effect of our choices if these very choices were not of our conscious making?

Rather than reducing life's complexity to singular explanations or replacing one ideology with another, this work invites a deeper investigation—one that recognizes that every lens illuminates some aspects of reality while obscuring others. Through investigating the assumptions, values, and conditions that give rise to our ways of seeing, new possibilities for understanding naturally emerge.

Questions Before Answers

In a world that rewards certainty and quick answers, this work creates a space to slow down, investigate experience, and observe the habitual patterns of thought that often go unnoticed.

This way of seeing cannot be cultivated through information alone. It requires certain qualities of mind that make inquiry possible—remaining curious, honest, reflective, and responsive to change, rather than becoming captured by habit or fixed views.

To support this process, you may refer to these six guiding principles which serve as anchor points in the mind. Much like a sailor relies on an anchor to remain rooted admits shifting tides, these guiding principles provide a place to return to whenever experience becomes confusing, emotionally charged, or difficult to interpret.

Together these guiding principles offer a practical framework for navigating life with greater clarity while providing a protective shield from the tendencies of mind that make perception more prone to distortions.

Allowing inquiry to ripen without resorting to quick answers or reactive responses is an empowering skill that can free the mind. Over time, these principles are understood less as theoretical frameworks and more as integrated qualities that characterize the mind and heart.

To learn more about these six guiding principles, go here .

Related article - Internal Vs External Protection (Coming Soon)

Aphorisms to put in your Pocket 

• Inquiry creates more freedom than certainty.

• Every conviction deserves investigation.

• Feeling convinced is not evidence of truth.

• Experience is not a mirror of reality but a window into conditioning.

• Problems often reveal inner vulnerabilities rather than external threats.

• Suffering from a traumatic event occurs once. Suffering from stories replayed in the mind occurs countless times. 

• The strongest assumptions are often the ones we don’t recognize

• We inherit our ways of seeing long before we choose them.

• Every lens reveals something while concealing something else.

• What we fear often contributes to creating the conditions we fear.

• Conviction can become its own form of blindness.

• Attachment to views narrows perception.

• Curiosity loosens what certainty tightens.

• Experience reflects conditioning before it reflects reality.

• Every emotional reaction contains information about the observer.

• Triggers reveal unresolved vulnerabilities.

• The habit of explanation justifies what you already know. The habit of investigation questions what you already know. 

• Clarity grows through observing phenomena rather than defining phenomena. 

• Where and how we place our attention is more valuable than the object in view. 

• Seek not to understand the object, but the quality by which you are in relationship with it. 

• The question we ask reflects both the nature of our concern and what we will discover.

• Freedom is the absence of investing in something that causes suffering.  

• Wisdom is not found by replacing one ideology with another, but by understanding how ideologies shape perception.

• The mind becomes clearer not by acquiring answers, but by examining the lens through which answers are sought.

• What appears meaningful is not necessarily beneficial.

• We cannot see clearly while defending our identity.