Look Closer

Olber’s paradox: when looking up at the night sky, there should be stars at every line of sight. Why are there not? Why is the night sky not completely full of star light? Because the universe is not old enough. Light from more distant stars have not reached earth yet. And because the universe is expanding, light from distant stars are stretched to wavelengths that lie outside the range of human vision. Good to have a reminder that human perception is incredibly limited. Both in time and in space. And not to mention all that can be perceived that is merely skipped over in silence.

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I think it is very worthwhile to take a very active approach with this. Meditate on a sense field. Say, sight. Ask, can I go deeper? What am I not seeing here. Really look. Step into what was not seen. Get comfortable with it. Then ask again. What am I not seeing here. The human eye can see individual photons. I was always amazed by that fact. It can get that granular.

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There’s the phrase “seeing is believing”. But on this pathless path, seeing is un-believing. It is the undoing of beliefs, coagulated thoughts and habits, habits even at the perceptual level. So that life gets incredibly simply and easy — just…this.

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These cows think they need to jump over this line. Why? Just because. Maybe because the cow in front of each did. Cows all the way down. This is how self inquiry works. Like Ramana Maharishi’s famous question “Who am I”? A person who hasn’t looked very hard in this way might say, am so and so, living here, working there. Well, look closer. Look again, and again, and again. There’s nothing there. That is freedom.

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What can be looked at in this way gets ever more fine grained. At the perceptual level. Is the depth? Is there space? Is there time? Is there anything at all? Hint: form is emptiness and emptiness is form.