The Empty Eye

I am processing a study on the book THE LAST WEEK by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, about the Gospel of Mark. I am thinking about Roshi's teisho in which he said "the empty eye sees everything." This was a mind-opening teisho for me, as I understood from it the importance of seeing with an "empty-eye," in other words, with a mind free of pre-conceived notions.

What I am taking away from my study is the realization that the Gospel of Mark is about the apostles' difficulty seeing Jesus with an empty eye. They all failed, to the man. They could not move beyond the paradigm of expecting a political/military messiah- one who would be the ultimate wartime general and king. It was natural- looking at the history of the chosen people up to that time. Salvation looked to them like an invincible army.

Jesus's message was consistently to look elsewhere than the spoils of this world to see God's dream for His created. His teaching (and the message of all religions, really) is that to transcend the biological imperative, we have to look outside of the biological paradigm.

Well, the apostles didn't get it. The exegesis we have been doing has really hit home to me that the paradigms in which I live are not the road to any salvation I could long for- be it personal, communal, or global. I must seek with an empty eye.

How does this play out? I am cultivating awareness of my conditioned responses (which are the infrastructure of my paradigms). Zen has been a wonderful training for this emptying of the eye. I am consciously practicing (with faltering baby steps) a more detached response to the events of the day, struggling to see and act upon a more god-like dream for me and my earthly companions.

I am writing this to cultivate an empty eye. The writing itself is practice. I am adding these words, and these thoughts to my neuronal structure. I am following Roshi's teaching to use my brain as my tool (and not vice-versa).