🔵 By Timothy Brunner. Photo by lauragrafie.
It’s said that the yes are the windows to the soul. What do others see when they look into my eyes? I’ve looked myself in the eyes many times. Well, that is if I am actually the man in the mirror. Perhaps that reflection is not me, though, because I cannot see through those windows. Unless, in looking out of those windows I cannot, at the same time, look into them as well.
Wow! That’s like the infinitely continuing corridors that appear in a mirror’s reflection of a mirror reflecting a mirror. Self reflection in the reflection of one’s self may be the same fun house concept. How is this not applicable to any other person looking into my eyes, though? Or even me looking into another’s in search of their soul? In order to look into another’s eyes, one must first look out through their own. How must this alter, skew, or distort that vision?
The metaphor of seeing through someone else’s eyes means to try and view a particular event from their perspective. In order to do so, one must first assume they know what the other person’s perspective is. Your thoughts about me are necessarily bound by the experiences of your life, excepting only what you can freely imagine. That means that any experience I’ve had that you have not will not be included in your perspective of who I am. I don’t believe one can actually see through another’s eyes except in the most general, common experiences. Generalities neglect nuance. Commonality denies individual complexity. Believing I can see through the lens of your life is the height of assumptive arrogance. I cannot possibly know what any given situation will look like to another. I can’t even tell what the man in the mirror is thinking when he stares back at me. Maybe it’s that he can’t see my soul, either.
There is a concept in bushido that is taught as “no-mind”. I think the phonetic spelling for the Japanese word is “Zanshin”, but I could be mistaken. I do know that the concept does not mean thoughtlessness, ignorance, stupidity, or absent mindedness. It is more akin to a centering prayer state of mind where one is able to separate their awareness form their thinking. To allow thoughts to run their course without letting them distract the focus of the mind. In bushido it is sought as a means to react faster by removing the delay of thought. To move without thought.
Such practice, at one time, helped me to separate my mind and its intellect from the physicality of my body and each of those from the desire, the will of my soul. In the separation I could see value of the harmony of oneness. I could appreciate my reality by focusing my entire self in a complete way. I came to value being whole. The struggles it took to come to an understanding of myself would make Sisyphus appreciate his rock. To believe I could ever accomplish the same on behalf of someone else in order to understand them enough to look through their eyes; I would rather let Sisyphus try, and I’D take his hill and boulder.
I don’t want you to look through my eyes because I don’t want anyone to become me. Understanding what I’ve been through is bad enough. Understanding what I’ve put others through is not a burden I would wish upon anyone. Instead of looking through my eyes to try to understand me, look at me. Look at me through your eyes, while I look at you through mine. Then, maybe instead of peeking in a window and judging each other, we can appreciate the differences that complement everything we, individually, are not.