"I don't want to be a tree. I want to be its meaning." -
from My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
A tree is only a tree, no more than a collection of molecules, until we perceive those molecules through our senses and it arises in our consciousness as something we call "tree" and "green" and all the other "ideas" we assign to our concept "tree." Things exist in the world but it is we who, through direct experience, give those things meaning - meaning in the sense of definition and also in the sense of value and worth.
Why is this important? If it is we who assign value and worth, those values can be changed. New experiences may add new information so that what was white yesterday may be black or some delicious shade of gray today. It means that I am always free to change my mind. We can say, "I used to think...." or "Now I see...."
What we call experience is our interpretation of what our senses present. Sense perception transformed through consciousness, arising as concept and idea.
