Seeing and Principle

    I have been thinking lately about the subtle balance that takes place in spiritual practice between allowing oneself to see things as they are and seeing them through the lens of principle. And I realized recently that it is not so possible to see things as they are without some kind of principle or understanding involved. For instance, I might think that what I am seeing in front of me is a computer. It seems so evident that it is, from the fact that I have seen it before and I am seeing it so calmly, eyeing all its details and nuances. But in fact what I see is always only a partial view, and it's not a full view of the object by any means. For instance, I am not seeing what this object in front of me will look like at a later time, given the present causes acting upon it. And I am certainly not really reflecting on the conditions that went into this computer: the work that was done on it and so on. So in that sense, am I really fully seeing the computer as it is? I would be hard pressed to say so.
    If I am truly experiencing something, I am aware that it is not something that only exists in this time, but actually is the conglomeration of many moments in time. In fact, I am creating this 'thing' every moment through a process of abstracting from different appearances, which don't have a connection. Sometimes, in the Chan group, the Fashis will say that the body that is mine today is not the same as that of yesterday, much less a few seconds ago. Is it self-evident that this is so just by looking at something with a calm or clear mind? Sometimes we can see impermanence just by having a calm mind. But other times, it's not so evident how causes and conditions come together to create a new event unless I hold that principle in mind. Because of my habitual tendency to see objects as isolated things that are separated from their temporal or spatial arising, I will often overlook that the object I see is the result of causes and conditions, including the awareness itself.
     Is meditation, then, a matter of retraining the mind to see through a very new principle? I believe that in a sense it might be closer to 'detraining' the mind to stop viewing phenomena as separate things and to see that they are only elements of a greater sense of impermanent interbeing. It is not so simple as just seeing a cup as a cup, or a computer as a computer. That's because this kind of seeing is already conditioned by habitual ways of conditioning, much of which is not seen at all. A cup is only a cup because we are habitually using it for certain things, such as holding tea. Even if I try to strip my observation of the cup down to these 'simple' functional elements, I still need to see that the functions are still determined by how the mind regards it and previous existing thoughts.
   Without studying or at least reading about principles such as no-self or impermanence, it might be tempted to say that meditation is about seeing mountains as mountains, rivers as rivers. But this can only happen when I am no longer attached to seeing them as such. I then become aware that a mountain could very well be a river and vice versa, only the current social karma simply defines mountains as mountains, rivers as rivers.  There is no need to say that this will always be the case, and part of the journey is to be willing to question things that are taken for granted: cherished ways of knowing that could very well change as the conditions change.