One Time, One Meeting

Meido Moore Roshi

Winter is the season of contraction. In the northern latitudes the earth contracts, and so do our daylight hours, our bodies, and our minds. To counter the ill effects of contraction, some of us engage in outdoor walking or winter sports or employ such interventions as anti-depression lighting. But another proven method, drawn from the Omori school of Rinzai Zen, can help to counter the feeling of contraction, while also enhancing our sense of freedom.

In Zen practice this method goes by various names. It is sometimes called “spreading out the vision” or, more lyrically, “practicing soft eyes.” This way of seeing is not unique to Zen. It is also used intuitively by martial artists, hunters, equestrians, quarterbacks, soldiers on reconnaissance, and others whose activities require unusual breadth of vision. But in Rinzai Zen the technique of spreading one’s vision is more than a useful adjunct to an existing repertoire of skills. It is a vital component of the practice. And in his new book Hidden Zen, the Rinzai Zen teacher Meido Moore Roshi offers the most thorough discussion to date of this important practice. What follows here is a summary of that discussion.

Enlarge your vision

During most of our waking hours we employ what is known as foveal, or focused, vision. This way of seeing selects an object and focuses primarily on that object, whether it be the eye of a needle or the screen of a smart phone. This common way of seeing filters out distractions, engenders concentration, and steadies the unruly mind.  But if practiced exclusively or in excess, it can also induce fatigue, internal chatter, and mental tension.

To rectify those imbalances, we can learn to expand our way of seeing by actively engaging our peripheral vision. If you wish to explore this technique, begin by standing or sitting in an upright, relaxed posture, your chin level, your eyes looking straight ahead. Open your arms and extend them behind you until you can no longer see them. Raise your index fingers at eye level, and slowly bring them forward until they appear at the periphery of your vision. Let your gaze encompass the area between them. Now drop your arms while maintaining that soft, effortless, and expansive gaze. Invoking a motto from Japanese swordsmanship, use your eyes “as if gazing at distant mountains.”

Be aware

If you practice the above exercise on a regular basis, you are likely to experience changes in your breathing, your body, and your states of mind. And, as with other aspects of Zen meditation, awareness of those changes is an integral part of the practice.

Among the transformations you are likely to observe, the most prominent include physical and mental relaxation, a reduction of inner chatter, and the diminishment of such afflictive states as fear, craving, and aversion. Over time, you may also experience an increase in mental clarity and emotional stability. And, most important, you may gradually cease to view yourself as a separate being, sadly removed from the rest of the world. As Moore explains:

[E]veryone, not just [Zen] practitioners, can relearn to spread their vision. When we do so, whole new worlds of living detail and movement open for us. We begin to feel again that we are part of the space surrounding us rather than isolated within ourselves. Truly, we should all regain this original human way of seeing.

Return to the source

As we become more accustomed to this practice, we can deepen it by shifting our attention from the world of external forms to the internal space where the act of seeing is occurring. As Moore puts it, we can “just let the mind rest within the act of seeing itself.” We can “see at the source of seeing.” And if we continue in the practice, we may eventually arrive at the liberating awareness of seeing itself, where there is no longer any dualism of inner and outer worlds. “Directly seeing,” declared Shido Bunan Zenji (1603-1676), “there is no seeing.” In other words, there is no longer any separation of the seer and the seen.

A way of being

The foregoing methods need not be confined to the cushion or the zendo. They can be practiced anywhere and at any time. As a prompt to such everyday practice, I would suggest a word borrowed from the lexicon of classical music.

The word allargando means “to widen.” This term directs the player to slow the tempo and impart a sense of breadth to the ensuing phrase. Taped to a mirror or dashboard, this mellifluous Italian word can remind us to lift our eyes to the distant mountains—or, if you like, to the snow-dappled foothills of Western New York. By so doing, we can not only reclaim a more balanced way of seeing, such as our ancestors knew. We can also cultivate a softer, less stressful way of being.

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Meido Moore, Hidden Zen (Shambhala, 2020), 39-49. Watch Meido Moore Roshi’s video “Spreading Out the Vision” at https://www.shambhala.com/videos/spreading-out-the-vision-a-practice-from-hidden-zen/.