Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:

There was a day that came that was bright and clear. A freshness in the air brought bantam spirits to life. And the day had a quality of benevolence. We spoke to the sky in the morning and asked for a day that was complete, that was a microcosm of life, a full life replete with the richness that is magical, that is unspoken, that fills each moment with more, or maybe makes perceivable moments smaller, like a film with finer emulsion, but each iota complete in itself, like a breath, or the day in question.

Before that day there had been turning away. We were distracted by the packages on things, the masks over people. We slithered sideways around experiences and forgot that we are here to right the rhythm of the world, to refine each event simply by facing it squarely.

We were like divers that couldn't hold our breath and remained tethered at the surface, submerging briefly in moments of remembering, steeping in sense and significance, only to resurface and return to the world of appearances.

But there is, we discovered, another medium in which to breath. Little known innate submarine equipment let's us stay below the surface and dive, deeply, exploring minutia with the eye that sees "a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower"; that holds "infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour."

The new sun now risen, shining equally on all, revealed that each thing is perfect and in its place. Nothing is awry—in the past, present, or future. Our parents were perfect. Our children and lovers and friends leave nothing lacking. We possess all the objects and stations we need, and more. Gratitude arises naturally in the light of this day, our day.

Abiding in this fresh wakefulness we see that aberrations, of course consistent with perfection, nevertheless comprise a part of the whole. They are the result of living with eyes closed. The sound of internal combustion engines, for instance, is a blight; as is the ugliness of highways and billboards and cheaply constructed mansions in pastoral settings; the alienation of people driving in the isolation of cars, working in cubicles, paving over glades and plains to build cement monuments to ignorance.

We see the push to profit where others will lose, the pitch that sells what the buyer doesn't need, the advertising that convinces us more and bigger is better. In darkness the furtive self-servant finds justification to kill, and to lie, with enough power to make the whole world a hell. These actions arise from a state in which vision is nil. For who could commit such crimes seeing the consequences?

What kind of monster will use the impersonal tools of bombs and missiles, armies hypnotized to kill, radioactive dust to mutate generations—who selects force before peaceful reconciliation? Only a person buried at such a depth of ignorance as to be unexhumable.

But how to respond? Alas, negative emotions are useless and unnecessary. All of them. Not only that, they are destructive and poisonous to our person and others. Every kind of disdain is a sign that we are not participating with Perfection. Spurred by this knowledge, the rising of bile impels introspection, and we become reconciled with ourselves.

It is only from a view that includes ourselves in the picture that true activism flows. For to attempt to change anything out of irritation makes waves that return to wreak havoc now or later. Instead, relevant action from an encompassing view has the power to transform.

The eye of the heart, perceiving the whole picture, and not just its annoying aspects, imparts the knowing that we are the evil-doers and the evil-doers are us. To correct the crimes of the world we can shrink from turning away, and instead of acting out of anger and resentment, look to see what we fail to accept in ourselves.

A new sun has risen. It is in everything. Shining from every crack and crevice; from every object and being. Its light shows things as they are, how they must be, and reveals the world as a luminous place.

—Jason Stern