attention

There's a bit of Faust in us all, believing as we do that the more we learn about something the closer we are to it. Not so. Any event, fully attended, uproots all our knowing at the source and carries inexhaustible surprises . . .

The point is that all phenomena, all dharmas, whether seen or heard or felt or whatever and whether pleasurable or painful, it matters not, all without exception, open us to reality if we give ourselves to them. "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" wrote William Butler Yeats. Zen says the whole universe is art and we are the artists.

-- Flora Courtois "The Door to Infinity" Parabola 15:2

The Door to Infinity