In the Dark

"They are not rearranging the room. They are turning on a light to see what's there.” From The Hidden Lamp

I often think of change as altering my environment. Yesterday I quit eating meat. This morning I found a new place for my old printer so I could have a place for a new one.

The confusion I have about turning on a light is what to do if you don't like what is illuminated by the light. I saw the meat as dead stuff entering my body, and saw that my printer needed to be moved to make a place for a new (bigger) printer.

Am I missing the Zen idea of accepting the world as it is? Or maybe after illuminating the meat, I notice that its life force expired some time ago. And illuminating my room I see that there is no space for my new printer.

But what if I illuminate myself? What would I see? What would I accept? And what, now illuminated, would I want to change?

P.S. After writing this, our Zen teacher walked in and asked us why we were in the dark. I said that we were reading about illumination. She flicked on the lights—way too bright for my eyes.