"A thousand eyes but none with correct vision"

Just because I look at a situation, it does not follow that I see the situation. For the last six months, I have been looking at Enchanted Lakes, the community where I live, through lenses colored by anger, resentment, and self-righteousness. And since my lenses filtered what I saw, my vision was likewise skewed. I saw anger, resentment and self-righteousness in others. So though I thought what I was seeing in other people, I was seeing correctly, in fact, it was as though I were looking in a mirror. For what I saw in others, lay behind my eyes as a window to what was in my soul.

Granted that initially I saw with correct vision that the way people do things here are very questionable morally, but this correct vision, so to speak, did quite a spiritual number on me. I became like, if not worse than what I saw. Moreover, I was blind to the awful changes occurring within my spiritual being. My ego was fed by my vision and I became something very close to a monster: an egoic self consuming negative energy and burning up the positive energy within me. I became what I saw and what I perceived.

“There is only one time when it is essential to awaken, and that time is now” said Buddha. And so thankfully, my vision has been restored and I have awakened, for the present moment anyway. “The scales have fallen from my eyes” as mentioned in the Bible and at last I can see. No one made me the moral authority. Mo one made me responsible to correct all the world’s wrongs, not even here in my small community. To think I could or should do so puts my ego on a pedestal whose foundation is shaky at best and at worst is short a leg or two.

No! Things are not perfectly managed here in Enchanted Lakes; but it is an enchanted community if I have correct vision. I always have two lists at my disposal.
One list contains all the things wrong about my world and that make me unhappy. The other list contains all the things right about my world and contain all the ingredients for my happiness. It is up to me which list I focus my attention on. If I awaken and choose the latter list, I have correct vision. For therein lies my true self which holds the path to peace, joy and love. My correct vision is within not through what I see with my eyes, whether two or one thousand.