Seeing

The Art of Peacemaking

Eliyahu McLean, Israel

(Submitted by the author and originally published in 'The Art of Living')

In our increasingly polarized world, traditional Jewish teachings about peace can offer us wisdom that we can apply in our current predicament. The word shalom in Hebrew means peace.
From the same root in Hebrew comes the word shalem, or wholeness. The great Hassidic philosopher Rebbe Nachman taught that the highest, or absolute, peace is the peace between opposites.

The Joy of Small Things

Subhashini Raghavan, India

(Submitted by the author)

It was monsoon season; the power had gone; I couldn't switch on the computer or the TV or use the phone; the streets were flooded and I couldn't go out. I was bored beyond belief. Then I glanced out my window at the nearest puddle and began to see the life forms floating through: there was the big black ant clinging on to the edge of a floating leaf, making an effort to climb up, as if scaling Everest.
Then, the millipedes crawling away at the corners with what appeared to be a million legs.

If we were to know

Pema Chödrön, USA

If we were to know that tonight we would go blind, we would take a last, real and longing look at each blade of grass, at each cloud formation, at each speck of dust, at each rainbow and drop of rain, at every thing.

Sight, Memory (With Apologies to Nabokov)

Ama Reynolds, USA

(Submitted by the author)

What is light? What is light within? What is light within light? Stillness becoming alive, yet still? A lively understandable spirit once entertained you. It will come again. Be still. Wait. - Theodore Roethke

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Perception

Chandrakirti, India

All phenomena possess two natures:
That which is revealed by correct perception
And that which is induced by deceptive perception.
The object of correct perception is ultimate reality,
The object of deceptive perception is conventional reality.

Measuring anew

George Bernard Shaw, Ireland

The only person who behaves sensibly is my tailor. He takes my measure anew every time he sees me. All the rest go on with their old measurements.

Lint

Connie Spittler, USA

Years ago, I met a man who noticed lint. After Reinhold Marxhausen watched his wife clean the clothes dryer screen, he began to collect this peculiar stuff, not seeing throwaway material, but texture, color and invention. A Professor of Art at Concordia College in Nebraska, he layered the multi-colored fibers under glass, forming abstractions that echoed landscape. I bought one, as a reminder to look more closely at my immediate world.

Light is God

Harvey Lloyd, USA

Our eyes do not see, any more than our computer thinks. Our eyes are marvelous tools for recording and transmitting photons of light to our brains in the form of electrical signals. Beginning at the retina, a series of computer-like programs analyze, censor, delete and send certain amounts of information to various parts of the brain. This is not widely understood. Most of us were raised and taught that we ‘see’ with our eyes.

Darsha

Acharya Mahapragya, India

Indian philosophy, or ‘darsha’, is based on perception, or seeing. In fact, 'darsha’ means seeing or perceiving. Its meaning has changed now. The philosophy being taught in colleges and universities today is based on inference and reasoning, but in ancient times it stood for direct apprehension. Not inference, not abstract reasoning, not causation, not universality or pervasiveness, but sheer apprehension. Today, we have lost the power to see and we fail to distinguish between thinking and perceiving.