I love to watch faces. To see them cry in the sun, or smile in the moonlight.
I am truly fascinated by the human form, but it is the face that steals my focus. To listen to every expression of the face is something I love to do. And many times, when talking with someone, I may miss the words completely, but their face makes the meaning clear as day.
Many cannot listen with their ears, which is bad enough. But most are incapable of listening with their eyes. That is a shame. Listening to the lines running deep, shades of skin, glistening eyes staring back. It is all there to see.
Part of me wishes it were possible to poke into the senses of other people through their eyes, and fully feel what they are experiencing. To feel the love, hate, anger, happiness, and see what it is so many billions of people suffer over. But none of that ever comes to me. It is only ever human beings. Sitting. Talking. Listening. Looking. Lines running deep.
Takuin’s Face
I take many photos of my face (although I never post them). I do not know why I do this. I am not particularly fascinated with it, and I cannot say there is anything at all I hope to find there.
Yet I keep doing it.
Whenever I see myself in the mirror, or in a photo, it is in some way like looking at a newly made map of a continent surveyed and explored for the very first time. Excitement and possibility. Unknown and dangerous. There are no memories or experiences of the thing.
Takuin Minamoto
This face is always with me, and carries absolutely nothing along with it.
And that never seems to change
{ 8 comments }
I really like this post.
Thank you, BC.
Hi Takuin
I would suggest its not so much the face itself but what the face is an expression of. Who you are. The eyes are certainly the strongest point. And even with a photo, one can get a sense of the inner life.
I know what you mean. When I catch my eyes in a mirror, its like looking into an ocean. I had forgotten about this though as it had become normal. (laughs)
The Yoga Sutra has a couple of verses about being able to experience others experience. But my copy is in transit at the moment, so I can’t quote now. But whatever the experience, it is you experiencing from where you sit. So you never experience what another experiences fully.
Thanks, Davidya. Good to see you…
I know – well, I am fairly certain – I will never again experience what others do. And I can not experience anything through their eyes in a literal way as I cannot go into the operation of their minds. But that is the life of this organism.
I don’t always understand how others feel as I cannot seem to make those same connections for whatever reason. But this helps make life beautiful and full of wonder. People seem to think it is a state worth having, and I can understand that want. But it could be nothing more than a defect in the brain somewhere…
Or an undigested bit of potato from last night’s dinner.
I am finding a similar fascination with seeing. Seeing into the eyes of people and the clear, translucence pouring out of them. I love to see someone where there is a glimmer of brightness indicated in their eyes pouring forth.
There is great enjoyment looking at someone where wide eyed SEEING pours forth, and they are totally consciously being taken (merged) with it.There is no hint of a veil or color from the mind. It is just the clearness of this mysterious seeing as if seeing from some ancient time long, long, ago….
Seeing like this is when the Supreme Ultimate (nothing at all) is shining. It cannot be grasped or seen. Nothing comes from it, and yet it is the most wonderful nothing ever. Opening wide… its total penetration already here… the supreme swoon. I never realized it. It realizes itself… actively colored by energies of life manifesting.
Thank you for this post!
Ben
And thank you, Ben, for your wonderful description.
This is great post takuin but in all honesty I personally find that I have no face/identity. I am boundless, empty, free, clear. For instance when I look in the mirror it just seems to be disguise I have put on temporarily to be in this world. Then it’s the other side of the coin, when I am working part-time, looking for a better full-time job, wife to support and bills to pay. You just gotta laugh lol
Thank you, Mits.
I agree.
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