Perception means to "regard" "classify" " assess" "judge" sense experience.
Perception "perceives" sights, sounds, tastes, touches, smells and mind objects (thoughts, memories, feelings, etc) as "this" "that" "blue" "green" "sweet" "salty" "good" "bad" "pleasant" "unpleasant" "you" "me" "yours" "mine" "not yours" "not mine", "Australian" "Iraqi" etc.
What each person with normal sense organs sees, hears, tastes, touchs, smells, is the essentially the same for each person.
However each person interprets or peceives differently according to their mental faculties.
Some people hear and see Iraq and perceive "it is good" others perceive "it is bad" others perceive "it is ordinary, the world is that way"
Some people perceive "Iraquis" "Americans" other perceive "one common humanity" others merely perceive "sensory phenomena" without all of the labels.
Perception is a matter of the mind.
The sense organs are a matter of the body.
The 6 sense objects (touch, taste, smell, listen & sight and mental objects) are merely neutral. The are merely the world or connected with physical phenomena, including the brain.
It is one's ignorance or wisdom that influence the mind's perception of reality and a person "mindfulness".
To repeat or clarify, there are:
1. 6 sense organs (eye, ear....mind as a sense organ that knows mental objects such as feelings, perceptions, thoughts). 2. 6 sense objects. (sights, sounds.....mental objects). 3. Consciousness or mind that functions with each sense organ. When the above three things function together, there arises sense experience.
Dead bodies have sense organs, the world is full of sense objects, however where there is no mind or consciousness, sense experience cannot occur.
When we sleep, mind objects such as feelings and thoughts obviously occur but we are not conscious of them therefore there is no experience of them.
Examine this for yourself. Close you eyes and sights disappear. Open your eyes and they appear. When your eyes are closed your mind and perception cease to function in regards to sights.
Shut off your 5 external senses and lock yourself into a room. Then your sixth sense will start to function. You will become aware of what is happening in your mind.
If your mind's objects shut down, are quiet, then your mind will move to your body and your mind will become aware of your breathing and the subtle emotional mental activities that precurse thought. You will "feel" your "emotional or spiritual heart".
How would a person that is deaf, voiceless and blind achieve "wisdom/insight" without initial sensory experience? How would a child know a faith?
Children have "faith" that their parents will give them what they want. Children have "faith" in Santa Claus.
I mere baby suckles its mother's breasts and has "faith" the milk is good. The same child eats some ink and has faith that the ink is not good.
The one week old baby possesses the faculty of "faith", of "believing" and based on that develops its faculty of wisdom, of knowing milk is good and ink is poison.
None of this depends on having "self-awareness" or "ego development". The faculties are already there.
Regarding deaf, voiceless and blind person acheiving "wisdom/insight", they acheive this because they are developing insight into want is most important, namely, what is suffering and what is not, they develop insight into the matters of the "heart" rather than matters of external phenomena. I would assume most blind and deaf people would be very loving, because their minds are not tainted or conditioned by gross external stimuli. It is like when one visits 3rd world countries. Although people have nothing and can live in poverty, they have an inner joy because their minds are not tainted by excessive stimuli.
There is an ancient phrase:
Too much colour blinds the eye, Too much music deafens the ear, Too much taste dulls the palate, Too much play maddens the mind, Too much desire tears the heart.
Therefore the wise person is guided by what they feel and not by what they see. In this manner the sage cares for people: He provides for the belly, not for the senses; He ignores abstraction and holds fast to substance.
So blind, deaf people are in tune with their hearts, with their emotional faculties, with their inner intelligence . They have sensitivity and therefore have insight into what is peaceful, what is loving and what is not.
