The Reflection Isn’t Real or Is It?

Walking upon the face of this earth we see many things. But that verb “See” is a tricky word. See’s primary definition in my word processor’s dictionary is “to perceive with the eye”. Eyes are fallible but most people give them great credit and trust. On a good day my eyes are at 20/40 or 20/50. On a bad day who knows. Anyone who works in the criminal justice system will tell you that eyewitness testimony in very unreliable over time. See’s second definition is to understand. Why do we see things the way we do?

Right now the news of the day is filled with tales of an airliner brought down by a missile. Everything I see tells me Russian soldiers carried out the horrific act. A rocket traveling a mile a second killed some of the preeminent virologists in the world. The dead were people who knew the ins and outs of AIDS and its genesis. Crowded in what would become their aluminum airborne coffin were the people who were working with passion to defeat the plague. Enroute to a conference on the health crisis their talented lives were abruptly brought to an end. In a flash of light and a horrific explosion their chance for future contributions at ending the disease were ended.

What I see when I watch the television are talking heads who say the Russians have moved the weaponry that perpetrated this dastardly act back into their own country. What I see are images of “rebels” trying to remove any evidence from the scene that might actually prove who shot the plane down. What I see are nations fighting over spheres of influence who in the end will shrug and do nothing. In the end does it matter what valuable knowledge we have lost because Russia wants to be the Russia of old and we on the other hand want cheap labor and goods?

On another channel I see a war with people dying in a land considered by three faiths to be holy. It is an unholy war that has been waged in many forms for centuries or even millennia. Dead is dead be it from a land mine or a head severed and then mounted on a pike. Barbarism in the name of God old style or new style is what I see. And nobody is to blame and everybody is to blame.

But what I see of this gruesome battle is fed to me by people with bias. My eyes see what other eyes have seen and then have edited. There is a narrative that gets created and whether it is reality is something else is a different question altogether. It is not just the current flare up that gets distilled and edited it is also the fate of the plane and if any turmoil or insurgency or assassination. It is all open to question as to what has been seen.

Buddhist though on seeing the ultimate nature vary:

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. Dogen

It is as though you have an eye That sees all forms But does not see itself. This is how your mind is. Its light penetrates everywhere And engulfs everything, So why does it not know itself? Foyan

I distrust the narrative in these events of conflict. I distrust my interpretations of these events because what I get to see is something tainted by human predilections. Human being want things, power and they want to render others subservient. In order to legitimize our claims of right (whatever that really means) we look at an event through the lenses of our desires. This is not seeing. I distrust the narratives of our hearts; we want things to be a certain way the tendrils of that desire wrap themselves around how we see and then warp it.

See and realize what you are seeing and why you are seeing it. The Moon and the universe is there in the dewdrop if you can find it. The eye is what shares the world with us but it is limited. Let our hearts see what is really going on.