Cataracts develop slowly, and gradually cloud the lens of the eye, blurring our vision and making the world appear less and less clear.
Opinions, prejudices and beliefs are cataracts of the mind.
Just as cataracts scatter and block light as it passes through the lens of the eye, so our opinions, prejudices and even innocuous beliefs, obscure and distort reality, preventing our mind from perceiving the clear light of truth.
As we age, cataracts take hold and expand; the lenses of our eyes become thicker, harder and less flexible, just as our opinions and prejudices tend to become more rigid and obdurate with time. So, the clarity of our vision and our mental acuity often decline in parallel with each other.
It used to be thought that cataracts were an irreversible condition, our declining eyesight irredeemable, but a surgical procedure can now remove cataracts completely, restoring our vision to near-perfection, seemingly miraculously. The problem was never our vision, but the cataracts obscuring our vision.
So also, the most fixed of opinions and prejudices can be removed by the surgery of meditation, and the mind’s clarity and perspicacity restored to its natural perfection.
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We are surrounded by and immersed in an infinite array of vibrations, frequencies, waves, signals and rays, including multitudinous thoughts, concepts and emotions.
To enjoy music on the radio, our receiver must be perfectly matched to the frequency of our desired channel. Unless the receiver is precisely tuned, we get only static and jumbled sounds. Our mind is this radio receiver, subject to constant bombardment by hordes of perceptions, thoughts and impulses.
To focus our mind requires that we be concentrated precisely on one frequency; and insulate ourselves from all others. Only in a perfectly tuned mind, is meditation attainable.