"Take the sunset: What happens when we see it? Ultimately, we don't. When the eye contacts a visual form, we merely see color, not a three-dimensional thing. In fact, the tint, along with the consciousness seeing it, dies out in a split-second, but we fail to catch the dissolve. Why? Because delusion blurs the separate moments of perception together, making experience look seamless. After the color sparks out, subsequent moments of consciousness replay the image from memory, dubbing it "sunset." This process takes only a fraction of a second. Nevertheless, by the time we name it, the original image is already gone. "Sunset" is a concept perceived through the mind-door, not the eye. We mistake this product of mental construction for something irreducibly real. Without the tool of mindfulness the trick is too fast to see, like trying to catch the separate frames of a running film."

What's so great about now? - Tricycle:  The Buddhist Review - Winter 2006