Seeing

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



Right now I am sitting quietly in the dark in my residence.1. I am looking out over the mesa to the mountains in the east. It is dark and the ambient light is not enough to clarify anything. But there it is, in the dark, right in front of my eyes.



Our universe is itself beauty, each and every aspect is a manifestation of its entirety: whole, alive, an quite conditional. As scientist-philosopher Brian Greene suggested, it is an Elegant Universe. Do we take any time at all to notice it? We look, but do we see?



Sitting zazen in the park, I often look out at the trees, the iron fence, and the iron bench. In front of me, beyond the park boundary, there are newly constructed southwestern style apartments. A playground sits behind me. Blue sky is above me and grass beneath me. Do I really see these? How? What are they?



As I squint my eyes as artists sometimes do, I see less detail, but in its place patterns emerge. There is positive space and negative space. A tension between the two arises. Good art always has tension, as does a good life.



We often come to Zen in order to quiet our minds. Wrong idea. Quietism is a disease. Serene reflection is active and dynamic. Students, come to Zen to witness. Come to Zen to see. Seeing enables tension to be seen for what it is, the energy between points that are bound together by that energy. And more. When that energy is realized, the points fall away. What is left is the entire universe residing right there, right now.



Be well.