Thought Wheel

Ann Chiappetta

Zen For The Blind

| Filed under writing

Not sure if anyone else has experience this, but I’ve found that being blind has made it awkward in houses of worship. I’m not talking about the spiritual process in a personal sense. What I’m talking about is the logistics of the actual ceremony. It’s something I haven’t gotten used to, even with Ro at my side.

For instance, going up for the host at a Catholic Mass is nothing less than an effort in frustration due to narrow iles.

Catholic calastentics aside, even when I went to our local Zen center, although the monks were helpful and understanding of my disability, I still felt like I was being left out of the ceremony because I didn’t know when to bow or find the altar .I suppose as long as I keep at it and work to educate the clergy wherever we go, it will improve. I won’t feel like a fish out of water; well, I am a Pisces, so that’s quite appropriate.

This is, of course, just one perspective of one blind lady in one city in the huge world.

In the words of a 13th Centry Dogen:
“We study the self to forget the self. When we forget the self, we become intimate with All Things.”

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