Seeing

"The whole of life lies in the verb seeing."

-- Teilhard de Chardin

You can think until your brain cramps up. You can emote until you work yourself into a total tizzy. You can pontificate until your tongue falls off. But the only thing that really matters is seeing. 

Seeing Reality as it is. Seeing what is happening right here, right now, in this moment. Perception and presence are how we connect to life. All the other stuff, all the second hand judgments, interpretations, reaction, opinions,etc. are merely overlays on the core experience of being alive. 

Seeing both the surface and the depth. Seeing the manifestation, and the energy behind the manifestation. Seeing all the way up to the door of mystery. And then letting go of even seeing.

You don't need New Year's resolutions, strategic plans, goals up the wazoo, or vision boards. You just need to see, and then you will know what to do. Doing that grows out of true seeing is always appropriate. Doing what is driven by cognition or emotion is at best once removed from Reality because it is mediated by the fears and desires of ego.

Seeing evokes intuition. And intuition, a non-cognitive way of knowing, is unerringly accurate. It's accuracy is based on its holism. By transcending dualism, intuition taps into the unitive heart of existence. And from there action flows easily, effortlessly and enjoyably. 

But to act impeccably, to know non-cognitively, you must first see completely, comprehensively. Seeing is all.

The Golden Radiance of Close Attention

"Stein writes about ordinary objects in unremarkable lives -- lawn mowers and Dodge pickups, TV sets and baseball caps -- but upon that humble stuff, he sheds the golden radiance of close attention."

-- Julia Keller. Writing about Illinois State Poet, Kevin Stein, in the Chicago Tribune 1/24/09.

I love that phrase "the golden radiance of close attention." I've read it now at least a dozen times, and it still gives me goose bumps on each re-reading.

Our lives are filled with humble objects and ordinary stuff, and yet each and every item is redeemed by "the golden radiance of close attention." (I can't stop saying it! I think I'll ask Julia Keller if she minds if I use it for the title of a book I've yet to write. It may be a book on how to fix your Honda Accord; it may be a book of poetry. Who cares? Either way the title would apply).

Let's face it: Most of us live pretty ordinary, unremarkable lives. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that at times we get a bad case of the discontents and dream and long for glamor and beauty and money and power. We think that if we just had ____ (fill in the blank), life would be perfect and oh so grand.

It ain't going to happen. Not likely, at least. What is going to happen is that we're going to shovel snow and watch the Super Bowl and make dinner and try and balance our checkbooks, and a million and one other little things, that strung together make up our lives. But each of these trite, little, mundane acts is a semi-precious jewel waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be unearthed by the redeeming light of attention. Waiting to be seen for what it is -- a shining holographic slice of life that both contains, and is a doorway to, the All and Everything.

Who knew, that the slice of bacon before you is a portal to the Divine? Who'd have guessed that the old Rolling Stones T-shirt that you refuse to throw out is as sacred as the Shroud of Turin?

You see, the Spirit abides in the details of even the most ordinary life. No icey trek in the Himalayas required. No zapping on the road to Damascus. No years beneath a bodhi tree. Right here, right now, the most mundane objects and actions come alive and shine through "the golden radiance of close attention."

And so, if you bestow attention on the little things on even a semi-regular basis, you soon realize that what you have here is a golden, radiant life. Golden attention, golden moments, golden life -- who could ask for anything more?