April

To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.
(Leonardo da Vinci)

Learn how to see. What does that even mean? How to see?

I suppose that untrained seeing might be likened to skim reading; it takes in surface information and uses it but does not really understand anything more than that. And it’s not until you are forced to look properly that you can begin to see. Drawing anything requires you first to gaze. It is surprising how we imagine things to be, when close examination gives a very different picture.

Connecting to everything else goes far deeper and is on a different level altogether: it is intrinsic and holistic and sometimes can only be arrived at after careful study, as da Vinci’s quote exhorts. But when it does arrive, however it comes, it can penetrate instantly in a strangely oblique way; a Eureka moment of pure revelation and intuition.

I started learning tai chi many years ago and was always more attracted by its graceful aesthetic and its philosophy than its martial power. I learned that the bi-coloured Daoist yin-yang symbol which adorned my class tee-shirt was a representation of the balance between opposites. In each hemisphere of its bisected circle the small dot of the opposite colour was a visual reminder of the eternal potential for change. 

It took many years of ‘study’ to realise that, of course, tai chi itself was itself made up of just this balance. The moves extend and retreat, and form a circular pattern. Causing an opponent to over-extend and break the balance of the circle is the basis for its devastating martial power. In other words, I began to ‘see’.

It did seem then that, having begun to make the connections with tai chi, other connections became visible. I ‘saw’ that the eternal potential for change was locked in my own life in the same way as it was in the yin-yang symbol.  Everything was indeed connected.

In our society we have also begun once more to acknowledge connectivity: the mind/body connection in health and the connection between technology and science and the arts and philosophy in education. The devastating connection between our industrialised lifestyles and global warming. How the state of ecological equilibrium can be disturbed by even seemingly benevolent interventions.

But such holistic connection can be dangerous territory. There are forces which would far prefer we stuck to the glib, fast-food equivalent of knowledge and it sometimes seems as though we are being trained to do the exact opposite of da Vinci’s careful observation. Soundbites often replace any meaningful exposition or dialogue as if to preclude dissent. Things move fast in our digital world and so must our reactions: we must be on one side or the other. Our minds must instantly be made up before we have properly looked.

Knee-jerk reactions dismiss the careful observation that da Vinci recommended. They also over-extend us, take us out of our balanced circle and leave us vulnerable to attack. If we can’t ‘see’ we cannot properly understand. We can’t draw and we can’t write and we can’t form balanced opinions. Eventually, by letting go of polarity altogether, we come to understand that the world is not either/or but is actually both/and. In order to develop a complete mind, we have to learn to see.