It is Thanksgiving holiday and a time for
introspection. I like to do so by visiting bookstores. Somehow in the vast
number of book titles I isolate myself from the moment and get exposed to new
ideas or return to old ones.
This time a book by Stefan Verstappen caught my eye.
Entitled “Blind Zen: Martial Arts and Zen
for the Blind and Vision Impaired” it is a book not only about how to
navigate through the days when blind, but to follow the Way of the Warrior. In
short, how to ignore your blindness and pursue a Zen state of mind.
Why did I pick up the book and started leafing
through?
Perhaps because of my dog. He was not with me in the
bookstore, but a couple of months ago he lost sight in his right eye. It was a
peculiar discovery as he had started bumping into trees and street posts when
on our daily walks. I ignored it at first and called him “old clumsy dog”. But
the veterinarian knew better.
So after 12 years of friendship, our relationship
has changed. Now I am his “seeing eye human” and I walk on his right side. He
does not bump into street posts anymore. And he does not see the rabbits in the
woods when they are sitting under a bush on his right side. But he is as happy
as ever.
Perhaps he has already reached that doggy Zen state?
.. I have always been fascinated by the kinaesthetic
learners in martial arts who are able to enhance their tactile and perceptive
senses and depend less on their vision. In fact I have seen a number of Martial
Arts Masters face their opponents with a headband over their eyes. Reading the
environment can be done with minimal vision I am told.
As I started reading Verstappen’s book a word kept
on coming to my mind. It is not a word used in the book, but I could not
dissociate the concept of “blindness” from that of “trust”. Again, I was
thinking about the past two months with my dog and how he now relies heavily on
me to keep him safe. In fact he trusts me with half of his world—the half that
is on his right side!
My favorite origin of the word trust is from Old Norse dating back about a thousand years. It is “Treysta” meaning "to trust, rely on, make strong and safe.”
Not only rely upon someone, but that someone will make you safer and stronger
through that trust.
… Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and after reading the
above book, I thought about a movie I had watched a few years back. It is a 2102
movie called “Street Dance 2”. So I watched it again. It is about a group of
dancers who trust each other during dare-devil moves on the dance floor. Or
perhaps it was about their determination to collectively synchronize their
moves toward breathtaking choreography.
But after watching the movie last night, I realized
that it was my impressions from one scene that unconsciously had brought back
the memory of my first seeing the movie. It was when Sofia Boutella ties a band
around her dancing partner and tells him “Dance with our eyes shut – just
follow my moves”.
And that was trust gracefully and most elegantly defined.
About
the Photo: Strangely, it is some sort of “street dance”. At closer
look one would see the Cowboy’s right arm in movement at the right of the
photo. The contrast with the stillness of the cowboy’s boots and the horses’
hoofs makes this dance quite unique. I wanted to capture movement within the
local daily context of Arizona.
November 25, 2015
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2015
