Seeing through Painted Eyes in Pemberly (Huerta)

 

Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire universe and the open sky are nothing but a painting. (Painting of a rice cake)

 

What does it mean for all of life to be a painting? Dogen says everything is a painting, and so all paintings are real; otherwise, if paintings are not real, nothing is real. I ask myself: have I had this recognition? Indeed how would I even know that I arrived at such a recognition? It is one thing to say everything is painted and think about the idea, but what does it mean to understand this in my body and mind?

Dogen tells us that when we understand that all of life is a painting, we will thoroughly experience the ability to turn things and be turned by things. Ok—what does it mean to turn things and be turned by things? Maybe I have a sense of turning things; I mean physically speaking, but do I know what it is like to have a thing turn me?

 

The phrase a painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger, Dogen informs us, is often misunderstood to mean that reading the sutras will not bring about true wisdom. Indeed expedient means are not at all useless to realization, Dogen says. For this reason, I would like to explore a moment in literature that may show and tell us a few things if we keep Dogen in mind. I was recently reminded of an illustrative moment that may serve as a way to understand what turning and being turned may mean all within the frame of a portrait.

 

In Jane Austen’s beloved immortal novel Pride and Prejudice, one such moment may illustrate what it means to turn and be turned by a painting. This moment comes when Elizabeth visits Darcy’s house for the first time in the novel. The visit comes after Darcy and Elizabeth have had a rather severe rupture in their relationship. Elizabeth has learned that Darcy prevented Bingley from marrying her sister and learns about Mr. Wickham and his apparent sufferings. After a confrontation, Darcy gives Elizabeth a letter as a response and defense to these newfound discoveries. In explaining himself, Darcy also brings great offense to Elizabeth, especially because of Darcy’s charges on Elizabeth’s family. This letter leaves Elizabeth perturbed, and at this point in the novel, it is not clear that reconciliation is possible.

 

When Elizabeth arrives at Darcy’s home, she is given a tour and meets some of the people employed by Darcy. Then at one point in the tour, she comes face to face with a portrait of Darcy:

 

“In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of the stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her— and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery…There was certainly at this moment in Elizabeth’s mind, a more gentle sensation toward the original than she had ever felt at the height of their acquaintance...and as she stood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression.” (Chapter 43, Pride and Prejudice)

 

If Dogen were reading Austen, Dogen would say Lizzy understands what it means to say a painting actualizes everything. It was not until Elizabeth was before the portrait that she could see Darcy as he was. Simultaneously the illusory fell away so that the subject, Darcy, might have space to come forward. It would seem that the best portraiture allows us to have these eyes, even if only for a few moments at a time.

 

This discovery and recognition of the portrait are in a way symbolic of learning as a whole. In turning a thing, we seek to understand it. We want to sketch an image of it from every angle. Thus we interrogate it and press upon it to see what happens. Given the vulnerability that choosing a life partner involves, it is no surprise that people do this turning of their prospective partners. In the context of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy respectively hold in esteem their ability to discriminate. Consider these learners par excellence who, even after making their initial dismissing remarks at the ball where they met, did not dismiss the other. I would argue both had discovered something but had not recognized what they discovered in each other.

 

What ensues between them is almost a verbal sparring where they turn each other, saying things to see how the other will respond. Yet, it was the portrait that allowed the subject to emerge most fully. It looks like something that happens when we seek to turn things is that we bring ourselves forward far too often, preventing ourselves from being touched and moved by the portraits of those we love. Consequently, nothing justifies all our expended efforts more than standing, or sitting, and finally letting the things come forward. Then illumination can come.

 

Yet Austen knows that this confrontation with deeply moving beauty is a double-edged sword. The same blade that cuts through the illusion and allows us to see the beauty also cuts us. In being cut, we discover with great agitation all that had been missing before. This realization about a lost awareness fills us, and so we realize just how empty we were. The moments that follow being in front of Darcy’s portrait Austen tells the reader are some of the most uncomfortable moments in Elizabeth’s life. The moment comes when after recognizing Darcy as a portrait, the real Dacy, now painted, comes forward:

 

“Amazed at the alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued were some of the most uncomfortable in her life…She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill judged thing in the world!.. Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination…” (Chapter 43. Pride & Prejudice)

 

Dogen again might say, Lizzy knows what it means to be turned by a thing. Elizabeth now sees through these painted eyes all the ways she has fallen short. Elizabeth, before this, could not get outside of herself to see herself. Austen’s brilliance shows us that we are all in this condition unless we do what is required not to be. Namely looking at a painting so deeply until we find that we have been turned by the painting, even if they are the most uncomfortable moments of our lives. Darcy and Elizabeth turn each other while bringing themselves forward, discovering the flaws of the other and bringing them to light, yet they never dismiss the other. Still, they do not experience vast or open hearts until they both respectively feel what it is like to be turned while letting the other person come forward. Austen shows us, and Dogen tells us that it is not until we stop using ourselves to measure life that life can pierce through the illusion that we carry. Both thinkers remind us that our insistence on a narrative or identity will prevent us from seeing life. Before we dismiss life, these teachers tell us, let us make sure we have allowed it to come forward, painted.

 

“When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you may assume it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind you understand something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of the ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you see can at that time. All things are like this” (Actualizing the fundamental point)