Seeing clearly: Experiencing our world, as it is
How often do we really experience what's happening? Here. Now.
That question shapes how I live. How I see the world and engage with it directly – beyond hope or fear – at work, at home, and in the spaces in between.
Lately, I've noticed how much it shapes my coaching, consulting, and leadership development – and how I exercise leadership myself.
Opening the "good eye"
This evolved through studying, practicing, and teaching Miksang Contemplative Photography.
Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates to something like "good eye," or unstained eye, or pure eye. Applied to the practice of contemplative photography, it invites us to shift our perspective. To change our allegiance from our conditioned way of seeing to experiencing the world directly — with spaciousness, openness, and freshness. Like a child in a new place, curious, awake, filled with a sense of awe, wonder, and play.
You've probably experienced this through your sense perceptions, including as an adult. A dog barking, seemingly out of nowhere on a dark night. A quick jolt of turbulence on an airplane. The hot pizza burning the roof of your mouth. The reflection of your face on a coffee spoon.
These moments can be sudden, shocking, and disorienting. And they can also make us feel more alive. Energetic and excited, even if chaotic. Like exiting the subway, train, or bus onto a busy city street. They can also be calm and comforting, but in a strange way. Like returning home and turning on the lights after a vacation or a long time away. It's familiar but also foreign.
And it can happen anywhere – wherever you are. Washington, DC. Valletta, Malta. Your bathroom, your car, the grocery store, the conference room or the cafeteria.
With our visual perceptions, we can use photography as a way to deepen our direct experience and our understanding of it. Once we are stopped by something we see, we can pause, remain curious, and express the equivalent of what stopped us – as it is, filter free – and share that cheerful moment with others.
It's like stopping to smell the roses – and then offering them to others. Not to show off, or get more likes on social media, but to invite them in, to see and experience their everyday world more deeply. The world we share, but often miss.
Doing this consistently and often can strengthen our ability to see more directly. Like physical or mental exercise, it builds and becomes easier and more habitual over time.
How are we seeing?
So what prevents us from seeing in this genuine, fresh, and cheerful way?
First, we're not really here, now. We're unavailable. We gloss over the world, on auto-pilot from here to there, worrying about the past or wondering about the future, ignoring what we're seeing or what's happening along the way. Unable to receive and appreciate the world in front of us.
Have you ever experienced that?
I have. It's like being in a fugue state. Lost in thought. I might leave the house and walk to the grocery store. Next thing I know, I've arrived…with no idea how I got there. Or what happened along the way. We're there, but not present.
Other times, we're engaged, but stuck in our internal world. Once we see something, we immediately label it, often unconsciously. We comment on our experience, laying our predetermined ideas over whatever appears. Beautiful. Ugly. Good enough to post on social media. Our thoughts become the real influencers we follow to understand our experience.
Building on that, we often show up to the next moment having already figured it out. We've become subject matter experts – knowing what is worth our time and attention and what is not. Before we even experience what's happening, we’ve pre-judged it. "I've driven this road to work a million times. There's nothing new to see here. It's not worth my time." We couldn't care less. So, we ignore our world.
There is another way, truer to life.
We don't have to try so hard to experience what's already happening. With the right intention, we can let go and relax. Seeing and appreciating the world, as it is.
I've found Miksang to be a powerful way to tame and then train my mind.
Like other disciplines, it takes intention, time, energy, and practice.
Beyond the formal exercises and assignments I've learned from my teachers at the Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography, Michael Wood and Julie DuBose, this has just become a way I live. Whether at work, home, walking the dogs, with friends, in transit, or on vacation.
And you don't need a professional camera or lenses to connect with what's already there. They work well too, but I've sold all my high-tech equipment over the years; now I mostly use the camera on my phone. Indeed, having it with me everywhere serves as a reminder that true seeing and direct perception are always possible, always available.
You do need the right intention. To be awake. To be open, spacious, and relaxed enough — while alert — to experience your experience directly. Especially the visual world, without the labels or associations we typically place onto our perceptions.
Holding both
To be clear, that doesn't mean abandoning our labels. They're useful. We can hold both — seeing directly and appreciating what's there, while also understanding the functions things have in our environment.
We don't have to run a red light. We just don't have to stop there (pun intended). While stopped, we can also appreciate the redness of red and how it contrasts with the bright blue sky behind it. The stiff blackness of the post uniting them and keeping them apart. And then it's gone.
So the practice isn't to eliminate our labels – good luck getting rid of your thoughts. Rather, it's to notice what's going on. It's looking at your mind. Noticing how and when our thoughts come up, and how they dissolve on their own. No big deal. That noticing opens a small gap. And in the gap, there is possibility. We can see it. And to some extent, here, we can express it. Inviting others to experience their visual world – and mind – the same way.
More than meets the eye
Here's the thing…seeing clearly can happen beyond our eyes.
Miksang trains this by connecting our eyes and mind. After some consistent practice, it’s easy to see what’s happening – literally and figuratively. We can see ourselves doing it. We see something with our eyes, then the labelling happens in our mind.
We do the same thing with other sense perceptions. For instance, take the banging construction sounds outside (literally happening here, now!). Notice what happens: sound…(perception)…association (“jackhammers”)…label (annoying!!!)…self-reference (this is disrupting my concentration and writing!). But what really makes the sound from those tractors different from Tchaikovsky? Where do the labels come from? Why? Where do they go?
What about people? Don't we put them in boxes and label them the same way? And then, rather than relating to the actual person — with their own interests and needs, joys and pains, hopes and fears — we engage with the image we create of them in our minds, based on the labels we've already assigned. And we rarely update them, like an old operating system on a computer.
Years ago, in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, I worked on the prosecution of two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, related to the global financial crisis. I believed in that case and where the evidence pointed us. I believed in my role and task, representing the United States, seeking justice in this matter.
Sitting in the same room day after day, I saw the defendants. And "the defendants" was a label – an accurate one, describing their role and why they were in that courtroom.
One day, however, something struck me. I also saw two human beings. Two men with their families in the seats behind them. I stayed curious about their thoughts and feelings, especially while they waited for twelve strangers to decide their fate and freedom. My belief in the case didn't change. My role didn't. My labels loosened. And I saw more clearly as a result. Maybe more humanly, too.
Leadership is an art of seeing
Since then, as I took on other roles as a senior executive in the U.S. federal government, executive coach, and leadership development and organizational consultant, I continued to see how my Miksang practice influenced these other areas of my life and work. I even use it now in my work.
I came to understand leadership as an art of seeing.
I’ve learned – maybe ironically – that it’s more than having or sharing your vision, or providing clarity about where you see, or hope to see, everyone going. Indeed, the work of leadership also requires discernment and judgment. People in positions of authority must decide how, when, where, and why to act, based on the information available, and despite the inherent uncertainty the future holds. Judgment also depends on perception and perspective.
And yet, how often do we include learning how to see clearly in leadership development? To pause. To look. And see what’s happening, as it is. To notice what comes up within us, or others, when reacting/responding to change or potential change. To notice the stories we tell ourselves and each other – including about each other – instead of seeing and understanding what’s really going on.
Rather than curiosity, we lead with conclusions.
The labels arrive, and we stop looking. Again, we've become experts in our experience. We ignore what's actually happening within and between ourselves and others.
What if we saw things differently? Sure, that takes more effort and intention. And a different skillset — including how we train our "leaders" and what we demand from them. But don't we all deserve that?
How might others see us, if we did? How might we see ourselves?
Start – and stay – where you are
So what does it look like to see, truly, in your world? In your roles, your teams, your leadership? In your everyday life?
How often do we experience our world directly, before and beyond the labels we place onto it?
For further inspiration, below is a gallery from the past few months of moments that stopped me, out and about in my ordinary life here in Malta. I know it can look magical and foreign. It still does to me, some days.
But you don't need to go anywhere special to see clearly. Besides, what does Malta have that other places don't? Every place, every moment, shares the same aspects of form — color, texture, pattern, light, space.
We can set our intention to be more awake to what we see, or don't see, wherever we already are.
The world is always speaking to us, inviting us to join it. Whether we're available and receptive enough to meet it — and to meet each other — is always up to us.