Squinting at What Could Be
When I woke up this morning, for some unknown reason, it took me a long time
to gain clear focus with my eyes. I washed them, rubbed them, exercised them,
drank a cup of coffee … finally, I could see clearly again.
“It has been said that if you could become another person for even a few moments
you would probably become Enlightened. So strong is our attachment to the idea
of who we are that even the smallest jolt out of it can have an immense effect.”
- Manjusvara
What would be your reaction be if the “new you” was blind or deaf? Our “idea of
who we are” is grounded in our body, and the limitations and possibilities of what
our bodies can do.
“Gertrude Jekyll, like Monet, was a painter with poor eyesight, and their gardens - his at
Giverny in the Seine valley, hers in Surrey - had resemblance’s that may have sprung from
this condition. Both loved plants that foamed and frothed over walls and pergolas, spread in
tides beneath trees; both saw flowers in islands of colored light - an image the normal eye
captures only by squinting.”
- Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts, 1981