We have two eyes to see two sides of things, but there must be a third eye which will see everything at the same time and yet not see anything.
D.T. Suzuki
When you head out to the trail, to the beach or to the coffee shop this summer, be sure to pack your binoculars. Not to go in pursuit of a rare bird sighting, but rather to witness the two sides of things– the relative and the absolute. Through one lens of your binoculars, witness the immediate, dynamic, ever-changing landscape of the world around you. This is the lens where everything happens as a result of cause and effect. Through this lens you see the law of karma operate right before your eyes. In this lens all is relative. Now, through your other optic, zoom into the changeless. This is the vast empty space that pervades everything and moves everywhere. This is the absolute. Bring this lens into focus so that you behold the infinite– without boundary, edge or seam. When you look through your binoculars to train your “dharma eye”, you may find it best to close one eye at a time. For instance, if you shut one eye to the constant flux of the changing scene, you can see with greater sharpness and clarity the great totality. Conversely, if you shut one eye to the vastness, the truth of the law of karma will be revealed.
After isolating one side at a time, try seeing with binocular vision by looking through both lenses simultaneously. In this practice, you will see the inseparability of form and emptiness, the imminent and the transcendent, matter and spirit. As you train in your “binocular yoga” you may need to periodically adjust one side of your viewfinder, either to see more clearly the relative world or to see more clearly the absolute. Yet with time, you will behold the world to be a seamless weave and see that the “two sides” are indivisible. When your right and left viewfinders come into focus together, you see the world as a unified field of awareness. In the yoga body, this is like seeing with the “third eye”. Of course the “third eye” is not really an eye at all. It is simply the reconciliation of the split-view and the realization of the unity of the one and the many.
