Third eye blind
I’m home in bed recovering from cataract surgery, precipitated, in my case, by the vitrectomy surgeries I had about a year ago. The damage to my maculae is permanent, worse in my right eye than in my left, but life does go on. Which is a very good thing!
As our Stoic role models say: Such medical moments are merely inconvenient obstacles, put in our way to build resilience. Setbacks are opportunities to feel gratitude. Proof we have everything we need. Provided we can transcend the nuisance.
But the need to see is no small thing.
My whole life I’ve been on a quest for 20/20 vision. I began wearing glasses in third grade. They were a clear plastic cat-eye number with gold glitter baked in. The perfect complement to my hot pink plastic purse with the gold chain. But glasses weren’t yet cool. By sixth grade, vanity got the best of me. Hard contact lenses were painful and they made my watery eyes freakishly green. But I saw my way through. I managed to wear them in the Florida glare.
Perfect vision, I thought, meant perfect clarity. But of course that isn’t true.
Now, with my eyeballs on the blink, it’s time to soften my focus on perfection. It’s time to access my third eye. The one Buddha called the wisdom eye.
The wisdom eye can give us insight. It can help us see and accept things as they are. But so often, our third eye is blind.
Jack Kornfield, the Buddhist teacher, writer, and founder of the Insight Meditation Society, says, Wisdom is awareness. Wisdom is becoming yourself. It’s honest, and not without humor regarding the human predicament.
Through the eye of wisdom, we see that we’re all connected.
Nearly 4 million cataract surgeries are performed every year, in the U.S. alone! During healing, we’re all wearing medical-grade black sunglasses. We’re fumbling around for our readers. We’re astonished at the colors of the world.
Post-surgery, my white Labrador retriever is the color of marshmallow. My wrinkles in the mirror are more pronounced. And I see that you are aging too.
My wisdom eye still is cloudy. But I’d like to think it, too, will see more clearly soon. As I write this, I’m picturing a wide-open eye in the middle of my forehead. Or maybe it’s over my heart. Either way, it looks kindly on the world and everyone in it. It’s forgiving. And kind. And loving.
It sees you.
It sees me.
It sees us.
