After Shakyamuni’s enlightenment, his first words were to someone called Upaka, to whom he said ‘In this world of the spiritually blind I go to Benares to bang the drum of the deathless.’  All of us – all humans – as we grow from infancy look in the mirrror of our parents, and take on board pictures of who they are and who we believe we are in relation to them. Rather like going to the opticians for an eye test, we end up with many lenses colouring our vision without even knowing it, we just take it for granted. Because the world of psychologists and sociologists do not know what it is to trust their own mind, we are all awash with theories and objectified pictures of ourselves. There is a medical students joke – but a very accurate one – that ‘neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them and the psychiatrist collects the rent.’ If we can see the castle in the air, we begin to see it doesnt really exist it is just a mental construction, which wobbles as we allow ourselves to see it. The we begin to trust our own perceptions  and feel something of the intrinsic ground…..