So have I seen:
Choose someone close to your heart. Hold that face, that voice, in your mind, as clearly as you are able. This is someone you love, someone you know. Let me tell you a thing:
You see them as one sees the night sky through a key hole, and you may never have suspected.
We are, each of us, inside, vast, and the truth of us hides in that vast interior. It waits to be noticed. It waits to be seen.
Take a moment. Let this seep in.
Ignorance, yet Knowledge. It is the second line of the Code. One and, also, its compliment; it is one of our central tenants. There is more to this line of the Code than might be obvious at first.
For now, let us leave out all ourerrors and assumptions. We will keep it simple with what is actually and rightly known. Those aretrouble enough.
When I have decided that I know, I stop asking questions. I allow my gaze to keep moving. Why dwell on the known? I tell myself that I know a thing,that there is nothing left to know. Or, I tell myself I know what is important, that the rest is not worth the trouble.
But the world does not stay still for us, Jedi. Are you just as you were ten years ago? Five years? Even one? Each day leaves its modest etching in us. It is unavoidable. We tend to resist the changes, ignoring what disagrees with our understanding. The small things stack up until, one day, the person or object that bored us with familiarity becomes, seemingly all at once, a stranger.
How much is lost?
Let us consider what we shall call naïve sight: the mind that does not know, the mind that sees precisely because it does not know. What does such a mind do if it is not busy knowing? Jedi, I tell you that it looks and it sees. This mind has no idea how long this should take and does not know if this is more or less important than other things it could be doing. So, it cannot be impatient or rushed. It does not have an opinion on what should be happening, so preference cannot mar its sight. No opinions and no constant comparison, so no snide comments or jealousy. No fear or expectation so,when there is a change, there is no resistance. Consider how acutely the world could be seen by such a mind.
Bring back all thoseassumptions and mistakes, all the reasons to stop being curious that are not even true and it starts to look like a disaster.Things have been overlooked: in our lives, our loved ones, and our own spirits. What about the trees on your drive to work?
I am not glorifying a lack of knowledge. Knowledge is precious in the time of reflection. I am discussing suspending the known in the service of seeing: the more of what I know that I can set aside, the more I can see. But this is all very theoretical. We can do better.
Return to that loved on from earlier. Or, if you prefer,someone with whom you would like to connect, but cannot. Or to yourself.
What you decided you know is what you now overlook. Wipe away the known; set all of that aside.
Ask questions. Look. See.
We lock what we understand in a box. We won’t allow it to be anything else, to change or contradict us, because it might make us wrong. This goes for the people in our lives, and it goes for our own spirits as well.
That vast interior is in everyone, including you. What have we missed, over and over again? What is new inside us, in both shape and content? Go back. Set aside, and see. Make ignorance your ally, the way of your sight.
