Chica o Vieja

In the movie “Mallrats” there is a character who spends the better part of the film staring at a three dimensional picture.  You remember those pictures, don’t you?  You stare at a picture for a while, and after a bit, an image of a sailboat or kitty cat or train or whatever seems to pop out at you.  The poor character in the film seems to be the only one who isn’t able to see the image.  I always had a hard time with those pictures until I learned that I could see the image faster by crossing my eyes.

I have always loved optical illusions.  I especially love those illustrations which can be two different things depending upon which part of the picture you focus your eyes.  For example, there is that famous picture that would seem to show a beautiful woman turning her head.  Yet, look at the picture in a different way and you see an old hag.  Another is a picture of two men facing each other in silhouette.  Look between the faces and you see a vase.  It all depends on how you see things.

The truth is, of course, that the picture is neither an old hag or a beautiful woman.  It is a collection of lines and curves that can be confused as either.  It is neither an old hag nor a beautiful woman, and yet, it is both.  It is a picture.  That’s all.  It is our mind that makes the error.  This is what Lao Tzu means when he says that “The Tao begot one.  One begot two.  Two begot three.  And three begot the ten thousand things.”  There is just the one, and all things stem from the one.  Seeing anything as separate from the one is our own misconception.

You can see people in many different ways as well.  The Jewish officials saw Jesus as a revolutionary, someone who seemed to spit in the face of tradition, someone who challenged the established order.  That’s why he often left the Jewish territories and went off into the lands occupied by the gentiles from time to time.  Sometimes he just needed a break.  After having to deal with the Jewish officials who were giving him a hard time over the behavior of his disciples, Jesus left and went into the predominantly gentile area called the “ten cities”.

Again Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” —
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

The gentiles saw Jesus differently.  They saw him as a man who had a reputation for doing nice things, like feeding and healing people.  They weren’t terribly concerned about whatever rules he may or may not be breaking.  Just as in optical illusions, however, they are distracted.  People were more interested in the miraculous healing than they were in what Jesus was teaching.  That’s why he ordered the people not to talk about it.  It didn’t do any good, though.  Miracle healings are a lot more exciting than “blessed are the poor.”  Mark is making the point here that Jesus was the messiah because he fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah.

Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.

The message here, however, is not the literal healing.  Mark is also saying that it is through the teachings of Jesus that we learn to see, hear, and speak.  It is what comes out of our mouths that gets us into trouble, not what comes in.  It is how we see things, how we hear things, how we perceive the world that gets in the way of our spiritual growth.  It is focusing on the ten thousand things and missing the one, the Tao, that trips us up.

Lao Tzu said:

The great Tao covers everything like a flood.
It flows to the left and to the right.
The ten thousand things depend upon it
and it denies none of them.
It accomplishes its task yet claims no reward.
It clothes and feeds the ten thousand things
yet it does not attempt to control them.
Therefore, it may be called “the little.”

The ten thousand things return to it,
even though it does not control them.
Therefore, it may be called “the great.”

So it is that the True Person does not wish to be great
and therefore becomes truly great.

You can see the ten thousand things, or you can see the one.  You can see the beautiful woman or the hag.  They are one.  You can see Jesus as the revolutionary or the one who fulfills tradition.  They are one.

We do the same with the world around us and the things that happen to us.  We see them as good or bad.  We are either content or discontent.  A person in a third world country might see your life as amazingly rich.  You may be discontent with what you have.  You may wish you had a new car.  Others in the world might long to have a car half as good as yours.  Gautama said that all our unhappiness comes from discontent.

The Jewish officials saw the things that Jesus did and focused on his apparent lack of respect for ritual and Jewish law.  The gentiles looked upon Jesus and thought, “God is good.”  We can look at our lives and see only the pain and sorrow, or we can look at our blessings and say God is good.  It’s all in how you look at things.  There is pain and sorrow, but there are also blessings.  That is the yin and yang of life.  That is reality.  We tend to see one or the other, like the old hag or the beautiful woman.  Is the glass half full or half empty?  It is just a glass with water in it.

If we could learn to focus on the one, the Tao, if we could learn not to attach value to things, then we could learn to free ourselves from our delusions, the maya.  Then we could see the world for what it is and we might just decide, like the gentiles in the story, that God is good, that creation is good.  We might just have our own eyes, hears, and tongues freed.  The Greek word in the story for the healing meant to unbind from chains.  Free from illusions, maybe that’s what freedom is really all about.