table, non table (Thich Nhat Hanh)

 
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Thich Nhat Hanh, The miracle of mindfulness : an introduction to the practice of meditation., translated by Mobi Ho, [1975, 1976]

p.47
table and non table 

p.46
five aggregates
  1. bodily and physical forms
  2. feelings
  3. perceptions
  4. mental functionings
  5. consciousness 
p.47
  You are conscious of the presence of bodily form, feeling, perception, mental functionings, and consciousness.  You observe these “objects” until you see that each of them has intimate connection with the world outside yourself:  if the world did not exist then the assembly of the five aggregates could not exist either.  
  Consider the example of a table.  The table's existence is possible due to the existence of things which might call “the non-table world”:  the forest where the wood grew and was cut, the carpenter, the iron ore which became the nails and screws, and countless other things which have relation to the table, the parents and ancestors of the carpenters, the sun and rain which made it possible for the trees to grow.
  If you grasp the table's reality then you see that in the table itself are present all those things which we normally think of as the non-table world.  If you took away any of those non-table elements and returned them to their sources ── the nails back to the iron ore, the wood to the forest, the carpenter to his parents ── the table would no longer exist. 

  (The miracle of mindfulness./ Thích Nhāt Hanh., translation of Phép la cua su tinh thuc., isbn 978-0-8070-1239-0 (pbk.), 1. meditation (buddhism)
2. buddhist meditations., BQ5618.V5N4813   1987, 294.3'433, 87-42582, 
copyright 1975, 1976 by Thích Nhāt Hanh.
preface and English translation copyright 1975, 1976, 1987 by Mobi Ho
afterword copyright 1976 by James Forest
artwork copyright by Vo-Dinh Mai, beacon press, boston, )
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