Monochrome…black-and-white. I’m not a black-and-white fan. –
I like color too much and was delighted when color TV was introduced in the
sixties. I do like the idea of different hues of a single color – like a
monochrome of purple, for instance, or rose – rose-colored glasses. Looking
through rose-colored glasses – staying optimistic. Perhaps that is not such a
bad thing in today’s bah-humbug, fatalistic world.
Monochrome…. Single-mindedness, presence, bare attention. I
still struggle to achieve this in my daily meditations, and I find it much
harder to realize bare attention in a world where multi-tasking is considered
to be an efficiency devoutly to be desired (apologies to Shakespeare,) where I
am bombarded with a plethora of multimedia: instagrams, emails, apps, text
messages, Facebook, Twitter, ads and shows – all shifting by the millisecond. It’s
challenging to slow down enough to quiet the mind and focus on one thing –
monochrome.
Monochrome …… inflexibility: the inability to see issues
from more that one perspective. Ah, I am guilty of that, for I can be as
opinionated and judgmental as the best of them. I am learning to be less so and
something I heard Deepak Chopra say years ago helps ground me. He was the
keynote speaker at the 1990 American Holistic Medicine Association in Seattle
that I attended. Loosely quoted he said:
To look at an issue
from one perspective is to be stuck in a rut.
To look at an issue
from two perspectives is to have a dilemma.
To look at an issue
from multiple perspectives is the beginning of flexibility
And to look at an
issue from infinite perspectives – that’s enlightenment.
I strive for at least some level of flexibility and continue
my daily meditations to calm the mind, and open to new perspectives.
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