I found this essay by my friend, Felicia Miller, who became a Buddhist, in my files the other day, something she wrote and shared with me toward the end of her life (she passed in 2009 ). And then I found a poem she gave me long before that time, when we were both young students during halcyon years at Berkeley. I just felt like sharing and pairing the two here as I remember my friend as well.
I think Felicia would see the connection. There are gaps in a life, but again, the same song, no gaps, just an open window.
THE BUDDHA'S EYES
This longing to
see the gaze of the Buddha, what is it? What would it be
to look into this ancient, ancient man’s eyes?
Like entering the tractor beam of a
powerful darshan? Perhaps, but not only, also something else. “The taste of
freedom is everywhere in my teachings,” the Buddha said. Maybe like looking through
a window to see a limitless sky.
My friend Claude
told me about a ritual that Korean priests perform to bind the
community to the temple and to each other. They go to the
temple hall and attach strings from the lanterns that hang near the ceiling and run these strings from each one around the temple, going from each to
each. All the strings converge at the eyes of the Buddha above the alter.
Like the tiny buddhas in a certain Tibetan practice that we picture streaming through
the practitioners’ eyes, back and forth moving along rays of light that connect us all. After the Korean temple ritual is completed, priests cut
the strings into threads of protection for others to wear. People tie them around their
necks or wrists and wear them until they disintegrate. Protected by the
community, the sangha, protected by the dharma, protected by the Buddha.
So what would I be looking for, if I could look into the Buddha’s eyes?
Surfing Amazon, I came across a book titled “To See the
Buddha.” An image of curious eyes accompany the caption, “Look inside this
book.” I look, and find: “the Buddha is an absent presence.”
Present and absent, yes. The Buddha is an act of the imagination,
really, an absence we fill with our desire to be ruled no more by desire.
In Sri Lanka , an
artist has finished an image of the Buddha. The last thing he must do is to
paint the Buddha’s eyes. He does not do this painting the vacant lids up close. Instead, he holds up a mirror, using the reflection in the mirror to guide him. The statue’s
eyes are thus not part of the representation of form. They are a gap introduced
through the device of the mirror’s reflection. A point of reflection for the
artist, a gesture that says “This is a statue of the Buddha,
but not the Buddha. This isn’t it.”
A gap. Bardos at
every level of being - at the end of life, and at the ends and beginnings of every
breath, if we can but look for them.
The Buddha is a presence that denotes absence. We stand and stare, but to see the gaze of the Buddha, one would have to look with the eyes of the Buddha. A shift somehow. A trick with incense and mirrors. What does one see through the Buddha’s eyes?
The Buddha is a presence that denotes absence. We stand and stare, but to see the gaze of the Buddha, one would have to look with the eyes of the Buddha. A shift somehow. A trick with incense and mirrors. What does one see through the Buddha’s eyes?
What is seeing when no one is looking? Nagarjuna
says “the horizon of enlightenment is the same as the horizon of samsara.” The
same, only different, but not.
Felicia
Miller (2009)
Someone was the Sun
calling
from across
the
little island fields
we turned, and took the last
glimpse of the closing lid
"Let's go, shall we?"
I could not answer
but only followed after
just someone's glance
along the rock path.
Fascinating piece. I think Felicia nailed the idea perfectly!
ReplyDelete