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If, when talking about a painting, someone were to mention the terms movement, tone, rhythm or texture, our imagination would be taken to a very different place than if we read these same words when reading something related to physics. If they were used for describing a piece of music, they would mean something different to if they were relating to a river we were watching.

Our interpretation is very dependent on our perception, on our experience and on our emotions, at any given time.

If we had just come out of the hospital, where we had been suffering from a life-threatening illness and were faced with news of the death of a friend, our emotional response may vary from deep grief, strengthened by our own very recent close encounter with death, or a strange euphoria that we had been spared. Whatever our reaction, it would be very different from if we had faced that same news in the midst of our everyday lives, precisely because of our recent experience.

One of the philosophies behind Zen is that we should turn things on their head, take a different perspective than the one which is automatic. The idea is that we shake up our own imagination and perspective, don’t take things for granted and try to be open to possibilities.

Be the fool, the child, the wise man, as we all are at various times. But try to be each of them, all the time.