ON THE ASCETICISM OF THE EYE
During this period of Great Lent, the question of fasting with the eyes arose during our weekly Pilgrimage Society spiritual evenings. In initiating a discussion on the subject, my mind was drawn to a working paper by philosopher Ivan Illich, "Guarding the Eye in the Age of Show."1
Illich examines the changes in the concept of the gaze and convincingly argues that even the concept of what we do with the eyes has changed in often dramatic ways over the past few centuries. Consequently, when we use such terms, familiar to Orthodox Christians, as "guarding the eyes," "fasting with the eyes" and "the asceticism of the eyes," we must realize that the concepts which originally traveled with these expressions have changed. In some cases, whole concepts and understandings of various aspects of vision, seeing, gazing, looking, have vanished altogether. Indeed, more than 100 words dealing with the quality and meaning of seeing have vanished from our vocabulary over the past four centuries! This makes the task of the asceticism of the eye more difficult to grasp and to practice. The task is even more complicated by the carelessness in rendering translations of Orthodox prayers and terminology, a problem we will discuss later.
ASCETICISM IS NOT REPRESSION
Too often the word asceticism is understood simply as "repression." Even when one has a broader understanding of Christian spiritual struggle, the idea of "repression" is often a dominant feature in the way the concept is understood. Asceticism of the eye is, therefore, generally (mis)understood as a form in internalized optical repression and voiced almost exclusively in terms of averting the eye and suppressing the gaze - it is understood in terms of avoidance.
Askesis (asceticism) does not mean "repression." It means "training"--training the eye, training the gaze. While, for us, asceticism has a relation to moral development, it has no relationship to moralism. Asceticism is a process of training and development, not a system of guilt-ridden repression. The difference between the two is an essential difference between a Christian and a Gnostic point of view.
THE ASCETIC ASPECT OF ENCOUNTER
Asceticism of the eye consists not simply in training the eye for avoidance, but also in training it for encounter. We know that it is helpful to avert the eyes from anything that tempts the mind or impacts negatively on the imagination. Understandably, it is not spiritually beneficial for a man to gaze on a beautiful woman in a bikini, so one learns to avert and control the gaze. Nevertheless, asceticism or training of the eye has two aspects and we cannot speak of avoidance without speaking of encounter.
When art classes and penmanship lessons were dropped in many public schools, their elimination was based on the idea that they were "frills," an unnecessary focus on niceties. In fact, the origin of these classes in the educational process was the realization that the eyes needed to be trained. Art and calligraphy (which became penmanship) were part of the training of the eye for encounter.
In a deeper sense, within the Orthodox context, perceiving the full meaning, power, and spiritual impact of proper iconography without falling into delusion or saccharine phantasy, also depends on the asceticism of the eye, the training of the gaze. At the same time, Orthodox people who accept, or even prefer, Western religious painting to canonical iconography are lacking not only in spiritual discernment but in the asceticism of the eye. Their eye is not trained for spiritual encounter and remains attuned to the world of carnal images.
When a skilled or trained map reader gazes at a map, he can "read himself into it." Gazing at the abstract lines and symbols, he images himself into real location, space, and time. This is a unique faculty of human consciousness and the real value of imagination. The trained map-reader is able to image himself into an unfamiliar landscape, and into a specific time frame.
The ascetic eye, gazing at an icon, does not image the viewer into the scene but rather draws him into an unfamiliar dimension which is timeless and without location, and it does this by means of the abstract and symbolic aspects of the icon, by the sense of spiritual transformation and transfiguration which a canonical icon conveys. There is a real sense of the grace of the Holy Spirit conveyed in the icon.
The ascetically trained eye does not simply image or gather information; it seeks an encounter with meaning. For most of humanity, meaning is the missing dimension of being. In the absence of meaning, people have reverted to that happiness-seeking sickness from which Christianity had originally freed us from, or they seek meaning in spiritualistic fantasy.
The kind of happiness that one must seek is a substitute for meaning and for internal joy, and many of man's most destructive actions are done, not from wickedness, but from a fruitless quest for happiness which forever deprives him of an encounter with meaning.
Spiritualistic fantasy - that dark force that pervades 18-19th century Russian "spirituality," both produces and is produced by occult, Platonistic mysticism. The ascetic eye is attuned to encounter meaning, not fantasy.
As with the divinely inspired temple and liturgical worship of the Old Testament, Orthodox church architecture, liturgy, and iconography, constructed by divine inspiration, have been given as part of the antidote to both the happiness seeking sickness of mankind and to spiritualistic fantasy (which often led Judea and Israel into idolatry). Orthodox church architecture, liturgy, and iconography are devised, by divine inspiration, to open the world of true meaning to those who have eyes with which to see, and thus to preserve the faithful from various forms of idolatry. Those whose minds have been poisoned and blinded by egoism so that they wish to tamper with the structure of the temple or the integrity of the divine services, or to "improve" our iconography with modernist concepts, do so because they do not have an Orthodox eye, an eye trained by normal Orthodox asceticism to encounter true meaning. Being spiritually blind, they abhor true meaning because it is alien to their spirit.
THE MORAL ASPECT OF ENCOUNTER
The ascetic eye has the ability, not merely to avoid, but to encounter in an appropriate and edifying way - in a spiritually and morally edifying way. The moral gaze is not the puritanical glare of the averting of the eye from something unpleasant. The ascetic eye not only avoids temptation but avoids offending or wounding another person. When, for example, we gaze on a homeless street person with pity, we may only heap coals on his head and wound him with the eyes of our pity. What such a person really desires is to be looked upon with a gaze that validates his humanity. The truly ascetic eye would not produce a gaze bearing the negative energy of condescending pity, but embrace a recognition of equal personhood. There is a substantial difference between pity and compassion.
The moralistic eye can register disdain where the ascetic eye will register a healing love. Each form of the gaze is ultimately a reflection of the spirit of the one gazing. Lying with the eyes is far more difficult than being dishonest with the tongue.
The tragedy of the loss of meaning with regard to the concept of the eye, the gaze, and seeing is reflected in the loss of meaning in some of the current renditions of Orthodox Christian prayers and divine services. An example is the blessing, "God be gracious unto us and bless us and cause the light of Thy countenance to shine upon us." Some of the rewriting has lost not only "meaning," but even the concept that true meaning exists and is important. While it is necessary to modernize the language in many cases, it is not necessary to do so by changing the meaning. Thus, we see translations of this blessing which change "cause the light of Thy countenance to shine upon us " as " ... And look at us; " " ... and pay attention toward us;" or "turn your face toward us."
"Cause the light of Thy/Your countenance to shine upon us."
The word "countenance" (as well as "light") has a special meaning which is not commonly used in everyday English except in such phrases as “he has a very dark countenance” or “She has such a bright countenance.”
"Countenance" is not the external expression of the face, but the energy projected through the eyes. Up until about the 16th century, we still had a broad sense of the energy of the gaze which, like the Greek word emphasis, did not distinguish between visual perception and its object. A dark countenance is malevolent and projects a negative energy, while a countenance that is filled with light embraces the object of its gaze with positive energy.
"Cause the light of Thy countenance to shine upon us" implies a gaze that recognizes us in a personal way and embraces us with the positive energy of truth and love - a healing energy to be found in the light of the countenance of Jesus Christ. It is the countenance, and not simply the face, of a person that projects their inner spirit, and this is directly related to Christ’s saying that “the eye is the window of the soul.”
ENDNOTES:
1. Working Paper Nr. 4 for Science, Technology and Society Studies, Pennsylvania State University, August, 1994 (unpublished / circulated only to his personal friends). Dr Illich also mentions the former meaning of the word "face." In attempting to practice reductionism on the words of the prayers and divine services, many translators do not bother to examine what is actually meant by the words. It is only in recent times that the words "face" came to mean little more than the front of the head. The word “countenance” has a much deeper connotation and represents both the person and the inner disposition of the person. We may vaguely still remember this when we speak of "putting on a brave face," by which we mean having a countenance that does not reveal inner fear.
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