One thing you’ll hear about in meditation is the idea of unhooking your gaze. Look at the candle but don’t look. Look into the water without seeing it. That sort of thing. Not only is it a part of many meditation exercises , but it’s the crux of scrying—the divination art that includes crystal-gazing.
It can make you crazy if you don’t understand it. There’s a definite “What do you mean ‘look but don’t look’?” out there.
So I’m at work and I’m making a cup of coffee and I realize I really should check my hair but I don’t want to run to the ladies room because I’m making coffee. There’s a big framed painting hanging in the kitchen, so I use the reflection in the painting’s glass.
Now get this. I’m looking at the painting, but I’m not seeing the painting, I’m seeing me reflected in the painting’s glass.
The only difference in meditation and scrying is that you don’t know what you’re looking for in the reflection. But you do know you’re not looking at the painting.
When I worked for Prints Plus, I had a very hard time looking at those ‘Magic Eye’ posters. You are supposed to relax your eyes so much that the image can emerge. This was difficult with me because of the type of dyslexia I have.
But also we would have to come up with ways to describe to customers how it can be done.
One was to look at the picture as though it was a mirror, like you said.
Another was to try to look through it, to the other side, to an equidistant other side. So, same idea. You are looking right at the picture, but you are taking your eyes through it.
‘Keep your gaze soft’ is something I often hear in yoga class.
And once, in a workshop at Starwood, I was taught to do the same with my hearing; let all the sounds go soft so that a sharp noise would not be able to interfere with the meditation.
Actually, I found the reflection technique was the only thing that allowed me to look at the Magic Eye posters. Look at a reflection of yourself in the glass/pastic of the Magic Eye frame. If the Magic Eye wasn’t framed, if it was an unframed poster or in a book, I couldn’t do it.
Looking through it as though you are standing on the opposite side of it is, in fact, a trick to get you to look at it as though you are looking at your reflection.
Because it is the same distance. You to the mirror and back again, or you on the opposite side. It’s the same.
Interesting.
Anyway, works in meditation too.